Author(s)

Nagore Arruti Oyarzabal¹, Olga Villarreal Balza de Vallejo¹, Nagore Bernedo Belar¹, Maria Teresa Audicana Berasategui¹, Natividad Longo Areso¹, Borja Bartolomé²

¹Servicio de Alergia e Inmunología Clínica, Hospital Universitario Araba, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.
²Bial-Aristegui Laboratories, Bilbao, Spain.

Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) is defined as the spontaneous appearance of wheals, angioedema, or both, for at least 6 weeks, due to known or unknown causes [1]. In some patients who present a CSU with daily or almost daily symptoms a type I allergy could be the underlying cause. We present one adult patient with chronic urticaria who was finally diagnosed as a non-occupational case of IgE-mediated wheat allergy manifested following exposure by 3 different routes: inhalation (rhinitis and bronchial asthma), dermal absorption (contact urticaria) and ingestion (systemic chronic urticaria). We were able to detect the culprit proteins by immunoblotting. Serum IgE binds mainly to alpha-amylase/trypsin inhibitors and, to a lesser extent, to other proteins associated with food allergy to grains (e.g. beta-glucanase, serpin, peroxidase). In our opinion, skin prick tests with a food standard battery could help in the etiological diagnosis of chronic urticaria. The identification of responsible allergens could be difficult because only a few complex in vitro techniques allow detecting the allergy to several proteins.

Alpha-Amylase Inhibitor, Wheat, Chronic Urticaria, Allergy

Oyarzabal, N. , de Vallejo, O. , Bernedo Belar, N. , Berasategui, M. , Longo Areso, N. and Bartolomé, B. (2016) Chronic Urticaria Due to Allergy to Wheat Alpha-Amylase Inhibitor Proteins. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 5, 130-133. doi: 10.4236/crcm.2016.54024.