Autologous serum therapy reduces the symptoms and antihistamine burden in patients with chronic urticaria

Introduction:
Autologous serum therapy (AST) is considered a potentially curative therapeutic option in the treatment of chronic urticaria, especially in the autoreactive type.

Aim:
To determine the ratio of patients with a positive autologous serum skin test (ASST) in chronic urticaria and the efficacy of AST.

Material and methods:
A total of 77 (29 male and 48 female) patients with chronic urticaria were enrolled in the study. The autologous serum skin test (ASST) was performed for all patients and the patients were classified into two groups: ASST positive and ASST negative. Intramuscular injection of AST was administered and the total severity score (TSS) of the urticaria was calculated weekly for ten weeks. The TSS was calculated for another ten weeks without AST.

Results:
There were 34 patients (11 men and 23 women) in the positive group and 43 (18 men and 25 women) in the negative group. Reduction of symptoms of urticaria begins in the fourth week of the study in both groups. At week 20, 21 (61.7%) patients of the ASST (+) group and 12 (27.2%) patients of the ASST (–) group showed complete clearance. The use of antihistamines decreased from 100% at baseline in both groups to 8.82% and 25.58% in the ASST (+) and ASST (–) groups, respectively, at the end of the study.

Conclusions:
AST is a low-cost, cost-effective and potentially curative treatment with no adverse effects in these patients. It can reduce the burden of antihistamines.