All issues > Volume 31(10); 1988

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1988;31(10):1308-1314. Published online October 31, 1988.

Non-specific Immunotherapy with Histamine-Gammalobulin Preparations in Chronic Respiratory Group Patients and Non-atopic Asthmatic Children.

Byeung Ju Jeoung¹, Kyu Earn Kim¹, Ki Young Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Yonsei University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Received: April 27, 1988;  Accepted: April 27, 1988.

Abstract

We evaluated the therapeutic effect of non-specific immunotherapy with Histamine- gammahlobulin in 60 patients. Among them 22 patients were chronic respiratory group patients who were under 2 years of age and suffered from frequent respiratory tract infections, and 38 patients were as follows: 1) Excluding the patients who received 9 weeks therapy for the test period, the mean duration of Histamine-gammaglobulin therapy in the chronic respiratory group patients(9.4 months) was shorter than that of the non-atopic asthmatic children(21.1 months). We suggest that the latter disease presents more involved and troublesome problems to the patients and their parents. 2) There was clinical improvement in 63.6% of the chronic respiratory group patients after Histmine-gammaglobulin therapy; 18.2% of the patients exhibited excellent improvement and good and fair results were each seen in 22.7% of the patients, respectively. The patients who exhibited good to excellent improvement received Histamine-gammaglobulin therapy for approximately 1 year. 3) There was clinical improvement in 52.6% of the non-atopic asthma patients after Histamine- gammaglobulin therapy; 21.1% of the patients showed excellent improvement, 18.4% good and 13.1% fair. There was no significant correlation between the effecacy of Histamine-gammaglobulin therapy and the severity of asthma. 4) We evaluated the efficacy of Histamine-hammaglobulin therapy on 14 non-atopic asthmatic children who were treated for more than one year. At the short term follow-up, after 9 injections, excellent results were seen in only 2 patients but at the long term follow-up, excellent results were noted in 5 patients. Good and fair results at the short term follow-up were seen in 8 and 4 patients, but at the long term follow-up, after about 27 months of therapy, this changed to 4 and 2 patients, respectively. There were 3 patients who presented good results at the short term follow-up, but at the long term follow-up, after about 22 months of therapy, this changed to not effective. Histamine-gammaglobulin therapy appered to be effective in both the chronic respiratory group patients and the non-atopic asthmatic children, if the pateint was selected properly. The efficacy of Histamine-gammaglobulin therapy is better determined after long term follow-up.

Keywords :Histamine-gammaglobulin, Chronic respiratory group, Non-atopic asthma