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Comparison of five techniques of skin prick tests used routinely in Europe
M S Masse1, A Granger Vallée, A Chiriac
1Département de Pneumologie, Unité d'Exploration des allergies et INSERM U, Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve, Montpellier, France.
Background:
Skin prick tests represent indispensable tools in allergy, even more than 30 years after their introduction in clinical practice.
Objectives:
Few recent European studies have focused on this topic and we thus wanted to compare the instruments most often used today.
Methods:
Four instruments were investigated: the 23G intravenous (IV) needle, the ALK Lancet, the Stallergenes (STG) Prick Lancet and the Stallerpoint(®) (using two different methods). Sensitivity, reproducibility, and acceptability were evaluated. In 22 subjects, we calculated the sensitivity and reproducibility (both intra- and interpatient) of these methods by testing the positive control five times. In 50 subjects, we tested the single-blind acceptability of these same five techniques.
Results:
In terms of sensitivity, the IV needle (100%) and metal lancets (96% for the ALK Lancet and 98% for the STG Prick Lancet) were superior (P < 0.01) to the two Stallerpoint(®) methods (20% and 57%). Intrapatient reproducibility was 16.2%, 14.6%, 15.0%, 97.1% and 18.1%, respectively. The instruments that were best tolerated by the patients were the IV needle and the two metal lancets.
Conclusion:
Metal needles and/or lancets are the tools of choice for skin prick testing.
