Serum IgE Levels in Adults with Asthma

Serum total immunoglobulin E (IgE) was measured in 88 normal adults and 100 adults with asthma using Phadebas IgE PRIST kits. The geometric mean IgE in our normal subjects was found to be higher than that reported by some investigators but was similar to or lower than that reported by others without showing any geographic pattern. It increased progressively from 92 kU/L in normal controls through 205 kU/L in cases of asthma with low atopic scores to 464 kU/L in asthma cases with high atopic scores. There was wide variation in IgE levels among individuals, making it difficult to use it to classify any subject into one of these groups. However, as a group, female asthmatics had lower mean IgE levels (182 kU/L) than did men (577 kU/L), and a higher proportion of them had low atopic scores (60% of the women versus 47% of the men). This suggests that probably more women had intrinsic asthma, while extrinsic asthma was more common among men in the population studied.