Unsupervised Clustering of children with positive c-sIgE
Among preschool children with at least one positive c-sIgE (n=61), three
clusters (clusters 1-3) of different size were generated: Cluster 1 (C1,
n=4, 6.6%), with “multiple sensitizations, mainly to grass pollens and
pathogenesis–related protein family 10 (PR-10)”, Cluster 2 (C2, n=4,
6.6%), with “multiple sensitizations, mainly to food, grass pollens,
animal dander, and nsLTP”, and Cluster 3 (C3, n=53, 86.9%), with ”few
sensitizations, mainly to HDM” (Sup Fig 5). The distribution of SRW
within the three clusters did not differ, but three of the four patients
of Cluster 2 had SRW. Overall, lung function parameters were similar
between the three clusters (Table 3).
Among school-age children with positive c-sIgE (n=128), four clusters
(clusters 4-7) were generated: Cluster 4 (n=4, 3.1%), with “multiple
sensitizations, mainly to grass pollens, HDM, PR-10, and nsLTP”,
Cluster 5 (n=6, 4.7%) with “multiple sensitizations, mainly to
airborne allergens, including grass pollens and HDM”, Cluster 6 (n=24,
18.8%), with “multiple sensitizations, mainly to grass pollens, HDM,
and PR-10”, and Cluster 7 (n=94, 73.4%) with “few sensitizations,
mainly to HDM” (Sup Fig 6). All four patients from Cluster 4 had SA, vs
33% in Cluster 5, 25% in Cluster 6, and 34% in Cluster 7 (p=0.036).
Lung function parameters were comparable between the four clusters
(Table 4, Sup Table 5).