Prevalence of fungal sensitization in Moscow region patients

Berzhets V.M., Khlgatian S.V., Koreneva E.A., Emel’yanova O.Yu., Radikova O.V.

Fungal sensitivity is a significant cause of allergic disease. The most predominant fungi implicated in allergy belong to the genera Aspergillus spp., Pйnicillium spp., Alternarнa spp., Mucor spp., Cladosporium spp. The aim of the work was to study fungal sensitization structure of Moscow region. We studied 1385 human sera by RIDA AllergyScreen. 20% patients were fungal sensitized: 72% to Alternaria alternata, 50% to Cladosporium herbarium, 29% to Aspergillus fumigatus and 15% to Penicillium notatum. Alternaria alternata was the most common sensitising fungus, although a considerable number of cases were associated with other species such as Cladosporium herbarum, Penicillium and/or Aspergillus. We found that most of patients were polysensitized. A fungal sensitized patients were more frequently sensitized to epidermal allergens (54%), tree pollen (61%) and Dermatophagoides spp. Our studies demonstrated that, the fungal sensitization is commonly encountered and combine with hypersensitization to another sorts aeroallergen in Moscow region.