J Korean Med Sci.  2014 Jan;29(1):43-47. 10.3346/jkms.2014.29.1.43.

Increased Level of Basophil CD203c Expression Predicts Severe Chronic Urticaria

• Ye YM
• Yang EM
• Yoo HS
• Shin YS
• Kim SH
• Park HS

• KMID: 1796913
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2014.29.1.43

Abstract

Increased FcepsilonR1alpha expression with upregulated CD203c expression on peripheral basophils is seen in patients with chronic urticaria (CU). However, there has been no published report on the association between CD203c expression level and clinical disease activity in CU patients. To investigate whether the increase of basophil activation is associated with the disease activity of CU, we measured basophil CD203c expression using a tricolor flow cytometric method in 82 CU patients and 21 normal controls. The relationship between the percentage of CD203c-expressing basophils and clinical parameters was analyzed. The mean basophil CD203c expression was significantly higher in CU patients than in healthy controls (57.5% vs 11.6%, P < 0.001). The basophil CD203c expression in severe CU patients was significantly higher than in non-severe CU (66.5% +/- 23.3% vs 54.0% +/- 23.3%, P = 0.033). Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that both > or = 72% basophil CD203c expression and urticaria activity score (UAS)> or = 13 were significant predictors of severe CU (P = 0.005 and P = 0.032, respectively). These findings suggest that the quantification of basophil activation with CD203c at baseline may be used as a potential predictor of severe CU requiring another treatment option beyond antihistamines.

Keyword

Chronic Urticaria; Basophil Activation; CD203c Protein, Human

MeSH Terms

Adult
Autoantibodies/blood
Basophils/*immunology
Female
Flow Cytometry
Humans
Immunoglobulin E/blood/immunology
Male
Phosphoric Diester Hydrolases/biosynthesis/*immunology
Pyrophosphatases/biosynthesis/*immunology
Receptors, IgE/biosynthesis
Urticaria/*immunology
Autoantibodies
Receptors, IgE
Immunoglobulin E
Phosphoric Diester Hydrolases
Pyrophosphatases

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Mean percentages of basophil CD203c expression (%) at baseline in normal controls (NC) and patients with chronic urticaria (CU) classified into severe and non-severe groups. P values were determined using the Mann-Whitney U-test.

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  Fig. 2 Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis yielded 21.3% CD203c-expressing basophils as the optimal cut-off for discriminating chronic urticaria (CU) from normal controls (NC). The sensitivity and specificity were 91.4% and 90.5%, respectively, with an AUC value of 0.963 (95% CI, 0.932-0.995; P < 0.001). The sensitivity and specificity were calculated according to the identified optimal cutoffs, and P values were adjusted for age and gender.

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