Preliminary Study on Unreliability of Lymphocyte Stimulating Test for Kampo Medicine

We performed a preliminary study of the reliability of the lymphocyte stimulating test (LST) for Kampo medicine. LST for three kinds of Kampo medicines was performed in both a Kampo-administrated group and a non-administrated group. LST for each of the medicines was negative for seven of eight subjects in the non-administrated group, but was negative for four of 11 subjects in the Kampo-administrated group. The LST-positive participants had no allergic state, and some among them were negative in challenge test. This preliminary study suggests that LST for Kampo medicine is likely to be false-positive.