Fractal structures and silica films formed by the Treignac water on inert and biological surfaces.

The Treignac water is a natural mineral water containing mainly orthosilicic acid. On inert substrates, it forms a silica film with fractal structures which cannot be reproduced in laboratory-reconstituted water. These structures form by condensation of orthosilicic acid monomers, following the Witten-Sander model of diffusion-limited aggregation.

Follow-Up of Venom Immunotherapy on Flow Cytometry and Definition of a Protective Index.

Background: A major problem of venom-specific immunotherapy (VIT) is the absence of reliable parameters for deciding treatment discontinuation.

Aim Of The Study: Intracutaneous tests (ICTs), the basophil activation test (BAT), specific IgEs (sIgEs) and blocking factor (BF) activity were measured during VIT. We made an evaluation by means of a protective index (PI) including ICT, BAT and BF values.

The importance of EN ISO 15189 accreditation of allergen-specific IgE determination for reliable in vitro allergy diagnosis.

Background: Allergen-specific serum immunoglobulin E detection and quantification have become an important step in allergy diagnosis and follow-up. In line with the current trend of laboratory test accreditation to international standards, we set out to design and assess an accreditation procedure for allergen-specific serum IgE.

Methods: Method validation according to the accreditation procedure under the EN ISO 15189 standard was carried out for allergen-specific immunoglobulin E determination using the fluoroimmunoenzymatic method ImmunoCAP(®) (ThermoFisher).

[For an efficient and reasonable accreditation of allergen specific IgE].

French medical laboratories must be accredited before November 2016 according to NF/EN/ISO 15189 standard. However, technical accreditation guidelines cannot be applied literally for the determination of specific IgE for several reasons: more than 600 allergen tests, lack of international gold standard, limited external quality controls. Furthermore, the technique for determination of specific IgE is CE DM-IVD marked, common to all specificities, automatised, standardized according to a single calibration curve.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug hypersensitivity syndrome: a multicenter study. II. Basophil activation by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and its impact on pathogenesis.

Background: Patients who are clinically hypersensitive to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) sometimes present basophil activation in vitro, and in 50% of cases a parallel response to release of sulfidoleukotrienes (cellular allergen stimulation test) is observed. These phenomena occur not only in clinically hypersensitive patients, but also in some healthy controls who tolerate NSAIDs.

Material And Methods: We studied 16 clinically hypersensitive patients, 22 controls tolerating NSAIDs, and 29 healthy blood donors (clinical NSAID status unknown) using 2 different basophil isolation techniques (buffy coat or plasma leukocytes).