Basophil activation test shows poor sensitivity in immediate amoxicillin allergy.

BACKGROUND: In light of a pandemic of spurious penicillin allergy, correct diagnosis of amoxicillin (AX) allergy is of great importance. The diagnosis of immediate hypersensitivity reactions relies on skin tests and sIgE, and although reliable, these are not absolutely predictive. Therefore, drug challenges are needed in some cases which contains the risk of severe reactions. Safe in-vitro diagnostics as alternative for drug challenge in the diagnostic workup of AX allergy would be more then welcome to fill this gap. In this respect, the basophil activation test (BAT) has shown some promised potential, but clinical reliability is doubtful.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims at investigating the reliability of the BAT to AX and determining its exact place in the diagnostic algorithm of AX allergy.

METHODS: BAT for AX was performed in 70 exposed control individuals and 66 patients diagnosed according to the EAACI guidelines for AX allergy. Both CD63 and CD203c upregulation were flow-cytometrically assessed.

RESULTS: Analyses revealed that 1370 μmol/L and 685 μmol/L were the most discriminative stimulation concentrations for CD63 and CD203c upregulation respectively, and a diagnostic threshold for positivity of 9% for both markers was identified. At these concentrations, sensitivity and specificity for CD63 upregulation were 13% and 100% respectively, and for CD203c upregulation, 23% and 98%.

CONCLUSION: BAT with dual analysis of CD63 and CD203c is of poor performance to document AX allergy. The sensitivity is too low to let it occupy a prominent role in the diagnostic algorithm.