THURSDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to allergy skin test devices, the Multi-Test II has a higher sensitivity and specificity than Skintestor Omni, according to the results of an industry-funded study published in the June issue of the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved both multihead products for use in allergy testing of patients.
Mark Dykewicz, M.D., of Saint Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and colleagues compared skin test results for 31 participants using Multi-Test II on one forearm surface and Skintestor Omni on the other. Each multihead device yielded 93 negative control sites and 155 histamine sites.
The researchers found that when a 5 millimeter wheal size was used as the cutoff for a positive result rather than 3 mm, Skintestor Omni's sensitivity dropped to 87 percent from 94 percent, and specificity rose to 88 percent from 58 percent. With that cutoff, the Multi-Test II still had a sensitivity of 100 percent.
Skintestor Omni yielded smaller wheal sizes depending on test head placement; Multi-Test II yielded similar wheals regardless of the placement. Mean wheal sizes for Skintestor Omni were 7.74 mm, versus 9.23 mm for Multi-Test II.
"Multi-Test II had higher sensitivity and specificity than Skintestor Omni and produced reproducible wheal sizes from all test head positions," the authors write. "Because some Skintestor Omni test head positions produced significantly smaller histamine wheal sizes, skin testing using this device might result in underdiagnosis of allergy."
The study was funded by Lincoln Diagnostics, which makes the Multi-Test II.
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