الفهرس 
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Abstract
Allergic diseases are numbers of conditions caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment including: food allergies, atopic dermatitis, allergic asthma, allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis and anaphylaxis.
Periostin: a recently characterized matricellular protein, interact with several cell surface integrin molecules, providing signals for tissue development and remodeling. Inhibition of periostin or αv integrin prevent the development or progression of allergin induced skin inflammation. Thus periostin set up a vicious circle that links Th2-type immune responces to keratinocyte activation and plays a critical role in amplification and chronicity of allergic inflamation.
Also periostin is important in the development of bone, tooth, and heart valves, as acts on mesenchymal cells. Periostin induces proliferation of cardiomyocytes, modulating the healing process of myocardial infarction. Periostin has another physiological role in cutaneous wound repair.
Our study was a case control study which was performed on 40 children with allergic diseases, most of them were females (55.00%) with female to male ratio 1.2:1, who were recruited and followed up at pediatric allergy and immunology outpatient clinic, pediatric department, Sohag university hospital.
Most of the studied children (67.5%) with bronchial asthma were from rural areas, 37.5% of them with history of positive consanguinity, 47.5% of them with family history of allergy, 40% with family history of smoking, and 47.5% with history of previous hospital admission.
Most of patients with allergic diseases had mild diseases severity (72.5%), while 22.5% had moderate disease severity, and only 5% had severe disease.
Most of the studied children (57.50%) had normal hemoglobin, most of the studied children had normal platelets (97.5%). Stool analysis was normal in most of the studied children (67.5%) and (22.50%) had oxyuris. Most of the studied allergic children (52.5%) had elevated total immunoglobulin E
No statistically significant difference was found between different types of allergic diseases (bronchial asthma, allergic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis, and allergic conjunctivitis) as regards medical history including age, gender, residence, parent consanguinity, family history of allergy, family history of smoking and history of previous hospital admission with p-value>0.05.
No statistically significant difference was found between different types of allergy among the studied children except for stool analysis with p-value=0.02 as oxyuris were found more in asthmatic patients than other types of allergies (24.14%).
There was no statistically significant difference between patients with eosinophilia and those with-out eosinophilia as regards, total immunoglobulin E although 76,19% of cases with elevated immunoglobulin had eosinophilia and type of the disease although 62.07% of asthmatic patients and 75% of allergic rhinitis patients had eosinophilia with p-value>0.05 .
There was highly statistically significant difference between patients with allergy and control group as regards serum periostin with p-value=0.0001 being higher in allergic cases, also there was highly statistically significant difference between allergic cases and control as regards estimation of serum periostin with p-value<0.0001 being highly elevated in allergic cases more than control group.
There was no statistically significant correlation between serum periostin level and age of the allergic patients with p-value=0.43
There was no statistically significant correlation between serum periostin level and type of gender of the allergic patients with p-value=0.20
There was statistically positive correlation between serum periostin and platelets count with p-value=-0.01
There was no statistically significant correlation between serum periostin and other variables including age, WBCs, eosinophils, hemoglobin and total immunoglobulins with p-value>0.05
Although high periostin with increasing severity of allergic disease there was no statistically significant relation between serum periostin and disease severity with p-value=0.07.
There was statistically significant relation between serum periostin and hemoglobin estimation with p-value=0,02 being higher serum periostin with anemic allergic patients.
There was statistically significant relation between serum periostin and total immunoglobulin with p-value=0.02 being higher periostin level in allergic patients with elevated immunoglobulin as presented in table.
Finally our study concluded that serum periostin increases in patients with allergic diseases, with no detected relation to age, which makes periostin a reliable marker for diagnosis of allergic diseases among children.
CONCLUSION
Our study was a case control study which was performed to describe relation between serum periostin and allergic diseases.
Periostin was significantly increased in allergic patients, but its level not affected by disease severity, control or type of disease.
Recommendations
Further studies are needed to clarify the ranges of serum periostin in different age groups and for which age groups the serum periostin level is a useful biomarker and large sample size studies in children still are needed.