LTT in allergology

As the result of disturbed immune tolerance, allergies are on the rise in all advanced industrialized countries, in some parts with dramatic speed. Among these are the cell-mediated allergies (type IV). The detection of type IV sensitisations is another indication for the LTT.

• Drug Allergies
• Allergies to Dental Restorative and Implant Materials
• Individual sensitisation to environmental pollutants
• Type IV sensitisation to moulds
• non-IgE-mediated food intolerances type IV

Until about 1998, the lymphocyte transformation test (LTT) was used exclusively to assess immune function. Before this, the LTT was of little use in allergy testing, as the methods and technologies available then were not capable of detecting very low frequencies of allergen-specific T cells with the required certainty.
Only with the development of cell culture techniques and media, of radioactive analytical techniques and, not least, the use of methodological variations, such as adding recombinant interferon-α to the cell culture, the LTT evolved into a reproducible and highly sensitive method suitable for allergy testing.
The changes to the method, especially the addition of IFN-α to the test preparation, were already published in Journal of Immunological Methods in 1995 and are discussed in detail in this brochure’s general section about LTT methods.