As expected, no association was found between helminth co-infections and IFN-γ production by PBLs spontaneously
and in response to A. lumbricoides antigen. In addition, no statistically significant association was observed for sIgE, although a trend of decreasing frequency of sIgE risk was observed with increasing number of infections. It appears, therefore, that helminth infections do not affect sIgE but do up-regulate helminth-specific or non-specific polyclonal IgE. However, we cannot rule out that some helminth could be up regulating while others could be downregulating sIgE. As an exemple, Toxocara
spp was associated with increased sIgE in a previous study reported by our group