[Chronic urticaria. Characteristics, diagnosis and treatment]

Urticaria and angioedema are skins disorders more frequently in allergy sections of clinics. They are a serious health problem because in 90% of the cases, the causes are not determined and in a similar percentage, the results of treatment are not satisfactory either to the patient or the consulting physician. To find out some characteristics of chronic urticaria in our area, we studied 45 patients who sought consultation at the General Regional and Zone Hospital No. 6 of the IMSS in Ciudad Madero, Tamps., in a given time span. Persons of both sexes and all ages were included. All were given a complete allergy medical history and a complete series of laboratory exams to try to determine the diagnosis. Etiology the treatment was done separating the patients into two groups with four types of antihistaminics considered within the basic medicinal chart of the IMSS. The study shows that the skin rash and angioedema together had a frequency rate of 81.25% with a greater frequency in females (81.25%) between the ages of 20 and 40. The etiology could be determined in only 37.77% of the cases with a high emphasis on parasite. It is notable that in 56.25% of the cases there was an earlier history of some type of respiratory allergy not diagnosed. We observed that there were better results if two antihistamines H1 were combined to provide specific treatment of immunotherapy with good results.