Background: Allergic diseases represent one of the most common types of diseases globally and affect a large sector of population especially children. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the relation between serum periostin and different allergic diseases and to compare them with children of non-allergic diseases as a control group.
Methods: 80 children were included in the study; 40 had allergic diseases and 40 children had no allergic diseases as controls. All participants completed the history and clinical examination, complete blood count, total serum immunoglobulin IgE (UI/ml), and serum periostin level.
Results: Among the patients with allergic diseases, bronchial asthma was the most common diagnosed disease 29/40 (72.50%). Patients with allergic diseases had significantly higher mean (±SD) serum periostin when compared to infants with no allergic diseases (271.9±263.27 ng/ml and 115.33±191.42 ng/ml, P-value 0.0001). However, highly elevated serum periostin >150 ng/ml were found exclusively in patients with allergic diseases 22/40 (55.00%) and only in 4/40 (10.0%) of the controls (p-value<0.0001). Furthermore, there were a statistically significant difference between the patients with different degrees of allergic diseases severity and serum periostin level as it was 1080±251.73 ng/ml in severe allergic diseases compared to 244.5±263.57 ng/ml in mild allergic diseases (P- value 0.01).
Conclusion: The most common type of allergic diseases in our study was bronchial asthma. Higher serum periostin levels were observed in allergic patients in comparison to the controls; and they were found to have a significant relationship with disease severity
