Evaluation of interleukin 13 versus transforming growth factor Beta as a prognostic factor in the management of chronic spontaneous urticaria.

Chronic spontaneous urticarial (CSU) is defined as the appearance of wheals and /or angioedema for a total duration of six weeks or more. CSU affects approximately 15-25% of the population, influencing the quality of patients' life. This study aimed to evaluate interleukin 13 (IL-13) versus transforming growth factor Beta (TGF-ß) as a prognostic factor in the management of CSU. The study was designed as a cohort study, including 40 patients with CSU recruited from the allergy and immunology outpatient clinic at Ain Shams University Hospitals from 2022 and 2023. Also, the study included 25 normal subjects as a control group, matched with patients for age and sex, were recruited from healthy relatives of patients, hospital workers and nursing staff. Serum IL-13 and TGF-ß were measured by an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) at baseline, six-month follow-up after receiving subcutaneous allergen immunotherapy. The mean serum level of IL-13 at the start was 30.6 pg/ml and 22.1 pg/ml after 6 months , which was significantly higher in the CSU group than in the control group (4.7 pg/ml) (p < 0.001). The mean serum level of TGF-ß at the start was 106.6 ng/ml and 114.9 ng/ml after 6 months , which was significantly higher in the CSU group than in the control group (59.1 ng/ml)(p < 0.001). We concluded that IL-13 had a much better diagnostic performance in differentiating CSU cases from controls. While TGF-ß had significant moderate prognostic performance in predicting partial/complete response from non-response after receiving immunotherapy.