Davao City beefs up effort in early allergy diagnosis

Allergy is slowly wreaking havoc on the health of many Filipinos without the patients realizing it. It is heartening to note that allergy consciousness is now significantly improving, especially with the latest state-of-the-art system in the diagnosis of allergy and autoimmune diseases.

Using the modern UniCAP technology, the system is now found in many modern hospitals in the world, and it will soon be installed in Davao City to serve the residents there and in the whole of Mindanao.

Our Lady of Mercy Diagnostic Center in Davao City is now one of the approximately 4,000 diagnostic centers and hospitals worldwide that have the facility to diagnose allergy and autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases result when the immune system, which is supposed to protect one from infections and other diseases like cancer, starts making a terrible mistake of going berserk and inflicting damage on one’s own normal tissues by producing antibodies to fight it, instead of protecting it.

The UniCAP system performs a fully automated procedure requiring only a small amount of blood to help diagnose and evaluate patients with suspected allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases.

According to the latest survey, there are around seven million Filipinos afflicted with various types of allergies, comprising roughly 10 percent of the entire population. These cases are not only concentrated in Metro Manila but also in different areas around the country. Thus, there is a big need to make available the latest UniCAP diagnostic system in major hospitals and centers nationwide.

In the UniCAP system, a simple blood sample is needed to determine which among the over 500 allergens causes a patient’s specific allergic reaction. This will enable the doctor to prescribe the best treatment plan, which may include medication as well as avoidance of the sources of the offending substance.

The UniCAP system is specifically designed to complement the commonly used skin prick technique for blood testing. It is recommended especially for infants, the elderly with wrinkled skin and for patients with extensive allergy injury or extreme sensitivity to allergens. It is also a better option for patients who fear multiple skin pricking.

However, more than the detection of allergens, the UniCAP system is also capable of diagnosing autoimmune diseases by measuring the amount of antibodies in the blood to help diagnose diseases such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease.

Moreover, the system is the integrated machine for the running of the Elia method for automated autoimmunity testing such as dsdsDNA and ANA, which can be screening tests for other types of autoimmune diseases.

There are many different autoimmune diseases, and they can each affect the body in different ways. For example, the autoimmune reaction targets nerve tissues of the central nervous system in multiple sclerosis and the gut in Crohn’s disease. In people with rheumatic arthritis, the immune system predominantly targets the synovium or the lining that covers various joints.

In other autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), affected tissues and organs may vary among individuals with the same diseases. One person with lupus may have affected skin and joints whereas another may have affected skin, kidney and lungs. Ultimately, damage to certain tissues by the immune system may be permanent, as with destruction of insulin-producing cells of the pancreas in Type 1 diabetes mellitus.

To learn more about this advanced technology in allergy and autoimmune disease diagnosis, all interested doctors are invited to a scientific meeting to be held at the Grand Men Seng Hotel in Davao City on Sept. 9 at 6 p.m.

The meeting will feature two experts in the field of allergology, immunology and in-vitro testing, who will be discussing the latest development in these fields.

Dr. Linda Lim-Varona, head of the allergy section of the East Avenue Medical Center and an associated editor of the Philippine Journal of Internal Medicine, will discuss updates on the diagnosis and management of allergy, while Dr. Rebecca Lorenzo-Castillo, who just recently participated in the Allergy, Asthma and Autoimmune Disease Diagnostic Workshop held in Uppsala, Sweden, will tackle in-vitro testing of allergy and autoimmune diseases.

This event will correspond to the formal launching of the UniCAP installation at the Our Lady of Mercy Diagnostic Center, the first outside of Metro Manila.

The technology was developed by Pharmacia Diagnostics, based in Uppsala, Sweden. Pharmacia is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostic research and product innovation.

For other queries on allergy and autoimmune disease testing, log on to the UniCAP website at www.isitallergy.com or call Pharmacia Diagnostics’ local representative, Trianon International Inc., at 892-0723 to 24.