Skin test reactivity in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia

Background: Allergic disease prevalence and incidence are increasing worldwide for unknown reasons, with the steepest rise occurring in industrialized societies. Allergic diseases affect more than 20% of the U.S. population and are the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the United States. However in Saudi Arabia still there are (scanty) data on the incidence and the prevalence of the allergic diseases. Saudi Arabia has a fast growing population with an estimated population around 30 millions people, the majority of them in the young-middle age group

There were conflicting data published earlier on the most common allergen in Saudi Arabia with small size studies

Objective: To investigate the pattern of skin reactions among the Eastern Province population of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Methods: This is a cross sectional data analysis of standard prick and intradermal tests, which were performed to our patients, visited Saad Specialist Hospital in AL-Khobar city in Saudi Arabia between 

Results: A total of 217 subjects 192 Saudi and 19 Non-Saudis age between July2006 -July2009 were tested, 181 of them had only PST and 36 an ID skin test was done after the initial PST, 27 of them tested to foods and 192 patients to aeroallergens, Thee most common food allergen found was to Eggs 29.6% followed by milk 22.2% then Peanut 14.8%, The most frequent aeroallergens found were HDM (23.7%), cat (12%), Russian thistle (11%), Kochia (8.6%), Lambs Quarter (8%), followed by cockroach (6.6%) then Mesquite (6%)

Conclusion: Our food skin reactivity was consistent with that of the literature; on the aeroallergen we noticed a change in the pattern of the previously published data, which could be multifactorial in origin including environmental changes, a long with changes in the living habits of individuals.