[Clinical significance of human basophil releasability in bronchial asthma]

Human basophil releasability (HBR) was determined in 50 patients with asthma by modified human basophil degranulation test (HBDT). The result of HBDT was expressed as degranulation index (DI). 1. Anti-IgE-induced HBR: the mean value of DI in extrinsic asthma, intrinsic asthma and control subjects was 50.1 +/- 2.26(%), 32.2 +/- 2.3(%) and 18 +/- 2.74(%) (x +/- sem) respectively. If a DI of 30% or greater was considered as positive, the positive rate in the above three groups would be 96.9%, 60.0% and 20.0% respectively. There was significant difference between any two of the three groups (P less than 0.01). 2. Allergen-induced HBR: HBDT was performed in the asthmatics with sixteen allergens and in the controls with mite allergen. The positive rates were 68% in the patients and 0% in the controls. The coincident rate of the results between HBDT and skin test reached 82.9%. The results showed that anti-IgE-induced HBR could be regarded as an objective parameter for differentiating extrinsic and intrinsic asthma and allergen-induced HBR could be considered as an useful means for in vitro allergen diagnosis of asthma.