Health Vidya

Studies have shown that skin tests with cat extract are useful in the diagnosis of cat allergy. As a rule, persons with cat allergy have positive skin reactions when tested with cat extract, and non-allergic individuals rarely react (7, 8, 9). However, the relationship between a positive skin test and the appearance of clinical symptoms after exposure to a cat is not absolute, i.e., some skin-test positive persons do not experience allergic symptoms after exposure (10). Failure to experience symptoms may be dose related, since it is known that cats vary significantly in the amount of Fel d1 they produce (11). The efficacy of cat extract immunotherapy in the treatment of bronchial asthma has been shown in two studies (12, 13) A reduction in bronchial sensitivity was observed in five patients with cat allergy, whereas no reduction was observed in placebo treated, cat-allergic patients.