Study design and patients
In this retrospective database-study13 we included
patients from the internal database (ACETOmed 1.6.35) who visited the
Allergy Center Vienna West, Austria and were diagnosed as
pollen-allergic based on clinical history and allergen-specific IgE
levels >0.35 kU/l in ImmunoCAP (Thermo Fisher, Waltham,
Massachusetts, USA) between October 2012 (first entry in this database)
and the end of July 2016 (when the study was initiated).
For the single pollen analyses, patients with available IgE measurements
for pollen extract (grass, birch, ash, mugwort or ragweed) and the
respective major allergens (Phl p 1+5, Bet v 1, Ole e 1, Art v 1, Amb a
1) were included (Table 1). For analyses of double-sensitization, we
detected both patients with IgE tests available for tree pollen extracts
(birch and ash) and their respective major allergens and accordingly
patients with IgE tests for both weeds extracts (mugwort, ragweed) and
their major allergens.
The study was approved by the ethical committee of the Medical
University Vienna (EK Nr.: 1857/2016). As it was a retrospective
data-base study no informed consent was demanded.