Abstract

Objective: This study was designed to investigate clinical features of chronic urticaria and assess Korean traditional medical therapy on that. Methods: The ratio of male and female, duration of symptoms, personal history and family history of allergic diseases, serum IgE level, and suspected causes and provocation factors were investigated in 41 patients with chronic urticaria. And frequency of wheals, duration of wheals, number of wheals, itch severity, and antihistamine counts of 6-point(0-5) score was assessed in 26 patients. The change of total scores between baseline and follow up were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test(p〈0.05). Results: 1. The ratio of male and female was 1:1.28 and the mean duration of symptoms was 26.0 months. 2. The frequency of personal history and family history of allergic diseases was each 53.7$\%$ and 48.8$\%$ and 30.6$\%$ had over 200 IU／mL serum IgE level. 3. The suspected causes were none(43.9$\%$), foods(29.3$\%$), drugs(9.8$\%$) and stress(7.3$\%$). 4. The suspected provocation factors were foods(39.0$\%$), none(19.5$\%$), fatigue(17.0$\%$), heat and sweating(l4.6$\%$), pressure(12.2$\%$) and stress(9.8). 5. The total scores between baseline and follow up of 26 patients was lowered from 14.85${\pm}$3.80 to 7.65${\pm}$4.31 and it was significant statistically. Conclusions: Korean traditional medical therapy was proved to be effective on the chronic urticaria and we need to consider foods as important factor in both treatment and patient education of urticaria.

Keywords

• Chronic urticaria;
• Korean traditional medical therapy;
• Foods