Evaluation of Serum Cathelicidin in Patients with Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria

Background Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) has long been recognized as a major clinical problem with unknown cause, and it is well known that part of it is autoimmune. Cathelicidin as antimicrobial peptides was linked to autoimmune diseases. So, this study will be conducted as a step forward for better understanding of (CSU) pathophysiology. Aim of the Work Assessment of Serum Cathelicidin levels in patients with chronic spontaneous urticarial and correlate Serum Cathelicidin with Urticaria Activity Score. Patients and Methods This was a case control study conducted on 40 patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria attending the outpatient allergy and immunology clinic at Ain Shams University hospitals between October 2020 and August 2021 with 40 controls with matched age and sex were also included to evaluate serum Cathelicidin in patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria. Results The mean age of our CSU patients was 36.88 years; 67.5% were female. These demographic data are consistent with those of the literature. Our results showed that the distribution of the studied cases regarding demographic data, family history and duration of urticaria was no statistically significant difference between studied groups regarding sex, age. While for the family history there were 36 negative cases and only 4 had positive history. Regarding lab tests, we found that there was statistically significant difference between the studied Groups as regard the following WBC: (p value 0.023) being higher in group of patients than group of control, while for Total IgE: (p value <0.001) was being higher in group of patients than group of control. Also showed that there is no statistically significant difference between studied Groups regarding Hemoglobin, Plts, Eosinophils, with p value (0.056,0.989,0.411) respectively. The distribution of the studied cases according to Urticaria activity score (UAS7) in patients group was demonstrated as 12.5 % in Score 1, 50 % in score 2, 37.5 % in score 3. Conclusion Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) has long been recognized as a major clinical problem with unknown cause, and it is well known that part of it is autoimmune. Cathelicidin as antimicrobial peptides was linked to autoimmune diseases. So, this study was conducted as a step forward for better understanding of (CSU) pathophysiology.