Relação entre câncer, alergia e imunomediadores

Abstract

Introduction: Many studies have found patients with cancer present less allergy, while others did not found this association. The conflicting findings from prior studies are due to differences in the research methods, and in definitions of allergy. Objective: To identify a relation between cancer and allergy. Methods: This case-control study included patients older than 18 years of age, who presented a diagnosis of cancer, as compared to healthy individuals, paired by sex and ages. Anamnesis, allergy percutaneous test and a blood sample was collected to evaluate the eosinophils. Both groups were paired according to interest variables, and eventual deviations were adjusted by means of multivariate analysis. Results: Reports of allergies occurred in 30% of the patients with cancer, as compared to 53% in the non-cancer group (p = 0.001), whereas in the cutaneous tests, a greater positivity occurred in the cancer group (69%) than in the non-cancer group (51%), p = 0.01. No difference in the eosinophil values was observed within these groups. Conclusion: Patients with cancer present lower level of allergies. By contrast, in these cases, positive cutaneous tests detected allergies with no correspondence to clinical findings. Therefore, in presence of cancer, the positive cutaneous test for allergies is not related with clinical manifestation of allergy.