Chairman’s Air Pollution Seminar Series

Tuesday, March 1, 2005
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 Noon
Sierra Hearing Room, Second Floor
1001 I Street, Sacramento

- Webcast -

Identification of Target Bioallergens: Frequency of Specific Aeroallergen
Sensitization in an Atopic Population in the Sacramento Region

Suzanne Teuber, M.D.
University of California, Davis, School of Medicine
Davis, California

Charts from individuals who filled out a questionnaire and underwent skin testing at Kaiser Permanente clinics in the greater Sacramento area in the year 2000 were pulled for review. 566 subjects had a physician diagnosis of allergic rhinitis or asthma and were included in the analysis. Grass pollens (60% of patients), olive pollen (57%), and dust mites (49%) were the most frequent positive skin tests in patients with allergic rhinitis or asthma. Sensitization (i.e., a positive skin test) to mold allergens was much less common, but Alternaria was the most common mold allergen extract giving a positive skin test (24% of patients). Young adults from ages 20-39 had more positive skin tests than other age groups. Logistic regression analysis showed grass pollen sensitization to be significantly associated with asthma. Positive skin tests to cat or dog were more frequently seen in patients with moderate/severe asthma than mild persistent asthma. Overall, our results indicate a high frequency of sensitization to grass pollens and olive pollen in both patients with allergic rhinitis or asthma from the inland valley areas of Northern California, suggesting that these are the key pollens, and Alternaria the key mold spore, to examine in future studies of aeroallergen/pollutant interactions in California.
Dr. Suzanne Teuber is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the UC Davis Medical Center where she earned her M.D. She is also a member of the Graduate Group in Nutrition and the Graduate Group in Immunology at UC Davis. Dr. Teuber offers mentorship of various clinical projects involving allergy and immunology fellows. Current research interests are in the area of IgE-mediated reactions to food allergens.
For more information on this Seminar, please contact Corey Bock at (916) 445-9683 or send email to cbock@arb.ca.gov.
For a complete listing of the ARB Chairman's Series and the related documentation for each one of the series, please check this page.