BACKGROUNDChronic urticaria is characterized by transient, pruritic lesions of varying
sizes, with central pallor and well-defined edges, with disease duration
longer than six weeks. Its cellular infiltrate consists of neutrophils,
lymphocytes and eosinophils. There is a subgroup of patients with
eosinophilic or neutrophilic urticaria, resistant to the treatment with
antihistamines, but that respond to a combination of antihistamine with
other drugs.OBJECTIVETo evaluate the present infiltration in chronic urticaria biopsies and
correlate it with the clinical disease activity and response to
treatment.METHODSForty-one patients with chronic urticaria were classified according to the
score of severity of the disease, response to treatment and type of
perivascular infiltrate. Inflammatory infiltrates were divided in
eosinophilic (46.30%), neutrophilic and mixed.RESULTSAn association was found between the eosinophilic infiltrate and clinical
scores of greater severity (p = 0.002).CONCLUSIONThis association shows that the eosinophilic inflammatory infiltrates denote
high clinical activity, which means more severe and exuberant clinical
pictures of the disease.
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