EVALUATION OF CAP RAST IN ALLERGIC CHILDREN

CAP RAST is a new assay system for measuring allergen specific IgE. The results were compared with those of RAST in 57 allergic children. The correlation between CAP RAST and RAST were very good. The discordant results between CAP RAST and RAST were found in 23 samples. The specificity of each result was confirmed by RAST inhibition test. In case of CAP positive/RAST negative, all samples were inhibited by corresponding allergen extracts but not CAP negative/RAST positive samples. These data indicate that CAP RAST is more sensitive and specific than RAST.