In vitro immunomonitoring of insect venom-allergic patients on immunotherapy

Objective Sting challenge is the gold standard method to evaluate the therapeutic efficiency of allergen specific immunotherapy (ASIT) in hymenoptera venom allergic patients. Unfortunately, this method is risky, expensive and time consuming. Therefore, the development of an in vitro method is desirable. Recently the basophil activation test (BAT) performed with natural venom has been shown to be a promising method. We aimed to improve the benefit of BAT technology by applying the panel of recombinant allergens Ves v 1, Ves v 2, Ves v 3 and Ves v 5.