Abstract
There was recently an impression that pet allergy increased among children, therefore frequency of pet keeping in home with children and real conditions of children with pet allergy were investigated in 2000 and 2002.
The first study was a questionnaire about home with keeping pet, and there were 410 homes with pet among 1623 homes of the outpatient (the rate of keeping pet was 25.3%). The animal species were dog, cat, hamster, rabbit, little bird, guinea pig, squirrel and ferret, and dog occupied about a half of all pets. There were 469 persons who suspected allergy to pet in the 1521 homes of the outpatient, and the rate of suspected allergy to pet was 30.8%, and there was no significant difference between in the rates of group of the home with the pet and without the pet.
In the second study, 129 patients with pet allergy were studied. Age of the patients ranged from 10 month to 23 years old, and there were 69 males and 60 females. The patient over 12 years old occupied only 15% of all patients.
The patients were divided into 4 groups due to conditions with pet kept. The first group was 50 patients with pet in their home present (38.7%). The second group was 45 without pet in patient's home, but patient's grand parents kept pet in their home (34.9%).
The third was 15 patients in which had been kept pet in the past (11.6%), and the fourth was 19 patients had never kept (14.7%).
As allergic symptoms revealed by contact with offending pet, rhinoconjunctivitis was observed most frequently and next respiratory symptoms. In the first group, majority of dog was indoor in the home and beginning of the keeping dog was more often within 5 years. Cat in home of the grand parents was kept more frequently for a period of over 5 years long in the second group.
Serum IgE levels in each groups were significant higher than the level of non-atopic individual and the rate of positive specific IgE antibody to cat and dog were 81.5∼92.3% and 65.2∼80.0% respectively in contrast to the rate to mite was 73.3∼92.3%.
In the fourth group never kept pet, they were sensitized unnoticed and revealed symptoms to animal allergens, and this fact was thought very important for atopic individual.
Pet allergens became one of the most important allergens, therefore atopic individual might enhanced the risk of allergy.
This study showed that in the patient's home avoidance or removal of the pet was necessary, and atopic individual did not kept pet in his home and avoided to contact with pet to prevent the progression of sensitization process.
