Table 1.

What we know about IgE deficiency.

What we know about IgE deficiency
Patients might have no associated symptoms	•First case of IgE deficiency with no associated symptoms was described in 1970.33
May be associated with other immunodeficiencies	•Ataxia telangiectasia,31 Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID),38 IgA deficiency,39 IgG subclass deficiency.40 •When all other immunoglobulins are normal, the condition is called “Selective IgE deficiency”.
Patients might have environmental allergy-like symptoms	•Environmental allergy-like symptoms (e.g. asthma, rhinosinusitis), were described in different populations28,29,36,38,46 •Some of these patients have positive type I hypersensitivity reaction skin tests to environmental allergens, despite absent serum IgE levels.47
Patients might have non-specific manifestations	•Fatigue, joints pain28
IgE deficient patients have higher rates and risk of malignancy	•Patients with IgE deficiency have higher rates and risk to develop malignancy, compared with non-IgE deficient individuals.29,34,36,37 •Those with absent serum IgE and absent cell-bound IgE (negative type I hypersensitivity skin tests) appear to have the highest risk for associated malignancy47 •New IgE therapies for cancer are under development49