Chronic urticaria (CU) is a common condition faced by the practicing allergist. There is a considerable degree of variation in the evaluation of patients with CU. The intent of this article is to provide the practicing allergist with an appropriate, evidence-based strategy for diagnosis and initial management of patients with CU. A review was performed of pertinent literature of CU pertaining t...

The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristic cytokine pattern of patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria. Using flow cytometry, we examined the frequency of IL4, IL-10, IL-13 and IFN-gamma producing CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells at a single cell level. In patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria, the frequency of IL-10 producing CD4+ and CD8...

Fexofenadine is the hydrochloride salt of terfenadine’s active metabolite. In 2006, the FDA approved an oral suspension for the management of chronic idiopathic urticaria and seasonal allergic rhinitis in children. This review article summarizes the clinical pharmacology, therapeutic applications, drug-drug interactions, adverse events and food-drug interactions of fexofenadine that have been r...

The treatment of antihistamine and steroid resistant Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria (CIU) during pregnancy poses a challenge due to teratogenicity of immunosuppressants. Omalizumab is a recently FDA approved therapy for CIU and is classified as pregnancy category B. We present an initial series of subjects treated at a tertiary care center for antihistamine and steroid resistant CIU with omalizum...

Recent studies suggest that autoimmune mechanisms may be involved in the etiology of chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU). There is a higher prevalence of B12 deficiency in autoimmune diseases and possibly in gastric Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection. The frequency of B12 deficiency in CIU is unknown. Our objective in this study was to determine the prevalence of B12 deficiency in patient...

Introduction Exposure to cold can induce an exaggerated (local and systemic) inflammatory response in a number of rare disorders, including cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS), and idiopathic cold urticaria (CU). Although it is widely recognized that temperature sensing in neurons is mediated by several transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, it is not known how immune cells sens...

BACKGROUND Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) poses problems with respect to high prevalence, reduced quality of life, lack of long term efficacy, and expense of current treatments for severe intractable symptoms. There have been many reports suggesting 'stress' factors may be implicated, but there are no studies that explore the efficacy of treatments including a psychological perspective. A ...

Delayed pressure urticaria (DPU) is characterized by deep dermal wheals that appear in response to a local continuous pressure. Although it has been reported to complicate as many as 40% of cases of Caucasian patients with chronic urticaria, no definitive cases of Asian/Japanese patients have been reported in English literature. Here, we identified 17 cases of DPU, among 540 Japanese patients w...