Effects of sex hormones on basophil histamine release in recurrent idiopathic anaphylaxis.

A subset of patients with recurrent anaphylaxis experience ovarian hormone-related exacerbations. Symptoms in several of these women may be provoked by gonadotropins or progesterone (P) and improved by ovarian suppression, with long-term remissions noted in several patients after oophorectomy. Since adverse reactions to P might explain this association, the effects of P and estrogen on basophil histamine release from these patients were studied. Eight patients and 10 control subjects were examined. Neither estrogen nor P caused histamine release from the basophils of patients or control subjects. Moreover, anti-IgE-induced histamine release was not influenced by P or estrogen. Attempts to culture basophils for 24 hours revealed that basophil preparations from eight of 10 normal subjects but only three of eight patients retained the capacity to respond to anti-IgE after 24 hours (p = 0.088). Culture with dexamethasone reduced anti-IgE-induced histamine release in all subjects, and the possibility that P might interfere with the effect of dexamethasone was also studied. P failed to affect dexamethasone-induced reduction of basophil histamine release. Therefore, P and estradiol appear to have no effect on basophils from either patients with hormone-related exacerbations of anaphylaxis or from control subjects.