The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Original Article

The Effect of H1 and H2 Blockade on Cutaneous Histamine Response in Man

Ki Bum Myung
Corresponding author: Ki Bum Myung. Department of Dermatology, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1987. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

Histamine-induced cutaneous wheal responses were measured in 24 healthy subjects. The effect of the potent H1 blocker, hydroxyzine HCI, the H2 blocker, cimetidine, and the two drugs in combination was determined. The H1 blocker alone produced a mean wheal suppression of 77%(p<0.005). The H2 blocker alone produced a mean wheal suppression of 35%(p<0.01). The H1 plus H2 blocker produced 79% suppression. But the augmented suppression of H1 plus H2 blocker vs H1 blocker was not statistically significant (p>0.05). The result provide evidence that H2 receptors are present in the human cutaneous blood vessel, but additional studies must be performed to determine the significance of combined H1 and H2 blockade over H1 blocker alone in suppression of histamine-induced wheal formation.