Advances in IgE Testing for Diagnosis of Allergic Disease

Since its discovery in 1967, IgE antibody detection in skin and blood has identified a state of allergic sensitization and served as a necessary but not sufficient risk factor that requires objective symptoms to make the definitive diagnosis of human allergic disease. More recently, quantitative IgE antibody levels in serum against allergenic extracts, molecules, and epitopes have pushed its application into more accurately identifying the specificity of the allergic response for targeting immunotherapy, predicting allergic symptom severity after allergen exposure, and attempting to distinguish tolerance from food allergy. This review examines new in vivo and in vitro developments in the design, performance, interference, and application of the methods used to identify allergic sensitization. The increasing accepted applications of molecular allergen and allergen epitope-based IgE antibody measurements, especially as applied to food allergy diagnosis and management, are highlighted as state-of-the-art advances. Despite these major advances in allergic sensitization documentation, their ultimate value requires integration by the clinician with the patient's history and pretest probability of disease.