Methods: We performed a cross-sectional, observational, prospective and descriptive study in patients of both genders, from 2 to 58 years old, attending for the first time to the service of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in the University Hospital of Puebla, with clinical symptoms suggestive of asthma, allergic rhinitis, or both, for a period of 6 months. Each patient underwent clinical history and prick skin test with epithelial antigen Mus musculus. Data were analyzed with the program SPSS-Statistics 18.
Results: We included 110 patients, 50% were women, mean age was 24.1 years (SD 16.2), 92.7% were from urban areas and 7.3% rural. The overall prevalence of skin reactivity to antigen epithelial Mus musculus was 1.8%, the corresponding to patients with allergic rhinitis were 2.4% and the remaining subgroups were nonreactive. One of these patients worked with laboratory animals including Mus musculus, which represented 33% of patients with positive skin reactivity.
Conclusions: The results presented here support the relevance of implementing skin testing with antigen Mus musculus only in those patients who suffer from respiratory allergy and who have a history of recurrent exposure to it.
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