Skin testing for allergic rhinitis

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care asked Health Quality Ontario to assess the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of skin tests for allergic rhinitis and to estimate the cost of continuing to fund them. [...] For intradermal testing, the number of studies and the number of patients involved were too small to allow us to assess the overall accuracy of that test. [...] Our analysis of the costs of this allergy testing in Ontario showed that public funding of skin tests for allergic rhinitis costs the health system between $2.5 million and $3.0 million per year for the tests alone, not including the cost of the visits to the doctor where the testing takes place. [...] This health technology assessment had two objectives: to determine the diagnostic accuracy of skin-prick and intradermal testing in patients with suspected allergic rhinitis and to estimate the costs to the Ontario health system of skin testing for allergic rhinitis. [...] May 2016 Figure 8: Summary Receiver Operating Characteristic (SROC) Curve Showing the Sensitivity of Results for the Accuracy of Skin Testing for Allergic Rhinitis, Including Krouse et al (16) Compared to Figure 7, the estimate of the pooled pair of sensitivity and specificity fluctuates slightly, to 85.0% and 77.3%.