Histaminopexis in the course of trichinellosis

HISTAMINOPEXIS IN THE COURSE OF TRICHINELLOSIS

BY

JADWIGA

The II Clinic of Interna) Diseases of Medical Academy,

Poland

J. L. Parret first described in 1951 histamine action on guinea pig isolated in- testine. Histamine usually causes contraction of the intestine; this contraction can be partly inhibited by adding serum obtained from healthy humans and animal~

or from those suffering from various nonallergic diseases. On the contrary sera of the persons suffering from allergic conditions have no ability to connect histamine.

The ability to histamine capture is termed as histaminopexis. This property is consi- dered as a test for differentiation allergic from nonallergic conditions (Parrot and Laborde).

Numerous dilutions of histamine hydrochloride are prepared for experiments and the dilution giving the most distinctive contractions is chosen. The most authors use dilution of 10·

In our experimental

dilution of 0,01 mg per 1 ml was used. After kymographical recording of contraction an intestine is washed and than the same histamine dilution with dialized tested serum is added. Previously the serum underwent 24 hours dialisis in physiologic solution changed three times each 8 hours. Dialisis is necessary to eliminate any substances disturbing regu- larity of contractions. After adding to the vessel with intestine serum of healthy persons or nonallergic patients less contraction is obtained in experiment than after adding histamine alone, that manifests with lower wave in kymogram at an average of 1/3. This is due to the partly histamine capture by the serum (Parrot and Laborde).

If dialized serum of allergic patients is added diminishing of the contraction

height does not occure, because histamine is not connected and its action is not

changed. That is termed as histaminopexis equal O. Sometimes contraction strenght

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is in a minimal degree diminished, not more than at 10 per cent comparatively with the original value.

We applied in our clinic the histaminopexis test to determine the nature of the pathogenesis of trichinellosis. Some clinical signs of the disease as rapidly developed eyelids oedema with conjunctival hyperaemia, somttimes prescut pruritus, erup- tions and especially high eosinophilia and marked relief after treatment with corti- coids and other desensilizing drugs, as nitrogen mustard, seem to confirm the allergic nature of trichinellosis.

We have examined up-to-date 12 patients in whom diagnosis was undoubtedly confirmed by the positive complement fixation test. Among these 11 patients showed no ability to histamine connection, so their histaminopexis was equal or near O. Only in one case histaminopexis value was about 30 per cent. We examined for comparison 5 healthy persons and obtained in all histaminopexis in the range of 30-35 per cent and in 5 allergic patients (2 with bronchial asthma, 3 with allergic skin diseases) it was equal or near O.

These preliminary results of our investigations seem to confirm the allergic

nature of pathomechanism of the symptomcomplex in the course of trichinellosis.