Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) hypersensitivity is a commonly found drug allergy, in which two major phenotypes, respiratory (aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease <AERD>) and cutaneous (aspirin-exacerbated cutaneous disease <AECD> or aspirin-intolerant acute urticaria <AIAU>) types were noted in this country. Periostin is an extracellular matrix protein and structurally homologous with fasciclin I, an insect adhesion molecule. Previous study demonstrated that serum periostin level was significantly higher in AERD than in aspirin tolerant asthma. To evaluate serum periostin level as a biomarker for differentiating the phenotypes of NSAIDs hypersensitivity, we compared serum periostin levels between respiratory and cutaneous types of NSAID hypersensitivity.
Methods
Serum periostin levels were measured by human periostin ELISA in sera from 326 adult patients with NSAID hypersensitivity and 87 healthy normal controls (NC). The phenotype of NSAID hypersensitivity was defined according to previous histories of adverse drug reaction and/or aspirin provocation test.
Results
There were 45.7% of respiratory type of NSAID hypersensitivity (n=149) and 54.3% of cutaneous type (n=177). Mean serum periostin level was significantly higher in respiratory type (82.6 ± 38.8 ng/mL) than in cutaneous type (39.7 ± 31.1 ng/ML) and NC group (46.2 ± 29.0 ng/mL). However, there were no significant differences of serum periostin levels between AECD and AIAU groups (P = 0.708), between AECD and NC groups (P = 0.195), and between AIAU and NC groups (P = 0.110). The ROC analysis revealed that serum periostin level could differentiate AERD from cutaneous type of NSAIDs hypersensitivity (AUC = 0.826, P < 0.001) and cut-off level was 42.5 ng/mL with 93.3% of sensitivity and 61.0% of specificity.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that serum periostin level can be a useful biomarker for predicting the phenotype of AERD among NSAID hypersensitivity patients.