THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLINICAL EFFICACY OF SPECIFIC IMMUNOTHERAPY AND SERUM INTERCELLULAR-ADHESION MOLECULE-1 LEVELS

The intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is a reliable marker of allergic inflammation; ifs soluble isoform in serum is hypothesized t o reflect the severity of the disease, therefore if may be used to mon itor the efficacy of specific immunotherapy. We evaluated the levels o f soluble ICAM-1 in the serum of 14 patients with grass-induced respir atory allergy before and after 12 months of specific immunotherapy, an d correlated this parameter with the clinical outcome, measured using a visual analog scale. We found that in the majority of the patients, soluble ICAM-1 levels paralleled the clinical trend of the disease, wi th a significant decrease of soluble ICAM-1 in patients with successfu l specific immunotherapy (Spearman's correlation test: r = 0.57; p <0. 001). Therefore, we hypothesize that soluble ICAM-1 could be regarded as a reliable indirect marker of specific immunotherapy efficacy and t hat it could be used for monitoring clinical outcome.