The role of catecholamines in specific hyposensitization.

With the use of modern techniques for the evaluation of catecholamines, this work studies the behavior of catecholamines in the urine of a group of 33 allergic patients before and after injection of allergens as part of immunotherapy. In 24 of these patients the amount of adrenalin and norepinephrine had increased 24 hours after the injection of the allergens (p less than 0.001). This confirms the noradrenergic role of the allergen, apart from the release of histamine as a result of the immunologic mechanism. Histamine is released as a result of the increase of the norepinephrine and is evidence of a homeostatic mechanism, as had been established in a previous investigation by the authors.