[Correlation between the atmospheric level of antigen Amb-al (AgE) and the number of Ambrosia artemisiaefolia pollen grains in Lyon and neighboring regions].

Abstract

Accurate quantitation of the atmospheric levels of pollens and other allergenic particulate is laborious and may not always correlate with the concentration of allergen within the particulate. This study examined the atmospheric contamination by short ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiae folia) over 7 weekly periods during ragweed pollination in 6 localities of France centered around Lyon. The correlation between data obtained from the conventional microscopic numeration of pollen grain and and the quantitation of the allergen Amb-al level by radioimmunoassay was investigated. For the total of 41 paired analyses of the actual numbers of ragweed pollen grains and computed numbers of pollen grains from the Amb-al levels there was an excellent overall correlation (r = 0.90, p 0.001) thus the radioimmunoassay of Amb-al represent a simple and relevant alternative to microscopic numeration of pollen grains.