Although systemic allergic laboratory tests for the quantification of
allergen-specific serum
IgE antibody have been widely used, in these tests a high titer of serum specific
IgE does not necessarily indicate evidence of
allergy. We evaluated the diagnostic value of the glass microfiber-based histamine release test (HRT) using small amounts of whole blood, in 36 cases of allergic
conjunctival diseases: 17 cases of
allergic conjunctivitis and 19 of atopic
keratoconjunctivitis. The patients were evaluated by HRT, capsulated hydrolic carrier
polymer (CAP)-RAST, and conjunctival provocation test (
CPT) against ten
allergens. The positive rates for all
allergens were higher in CAP-RAST than in HRT. The mean concordance of HRT with CAP-RAST results was 0.789. The mean concordance of HRT with
CPT was 0.892 and that of CAP-RAST with
CPT was 0.693. A significantly higher concordance was observed in HRT than CAP-RAST for Japanese cedar and mite
antigen. The mean sensitivity, specificity, and efficiency of HRT were higher than those of CAP-RAST. These results indicate that CAP-RAST is good for the screening of
allergens and that HRT has an advantage in the confirmation of clinical
allergens in allergic
conjunctival diseases because of its high sensitivity, specificity, efficiency, and higher concordance with
CPT.