Panel Discussion: Urticaria Workup and Discussion

When to consider alternate diagnoses for chronic urticaria: lack of pruritis, individual lesions that last days to weeks, angioedema without urticaria, lesions only affecting one area of the body, a review of systems suggestive of systemic disease, and/or a failure to respond to therapy.

Urticarial lesions are itchy and last less than 24 hours.

Tryptase is useful in distinguishing mastocytosis from mast cell activation (acute allergic reaction vs anaphylaxis).