[1][2] Advantages of the allergy blood test range from: excellent reproducibility across the full measuring range of the calibration curve, it has very high specificity as it binds to allergen specific IgE, and extremely sensitive too, when compared with skin prick testing.
Allergy blood tests, such as ImmunoCAP, are performed without procedure variations, and the results are of excellent standardization.
Compared to skin testing, ImmunoCAP and other RAST techniques take longer to perform and are less cost effective.
[6] In the NIH food guidelines issued in December 2010 it was stated that "The predictive values associated with clinical evidence of allergy for ImmunoCAP cannot be applied to other test methods.
"[7] With over 4000 scientific articles using ImmunoCAP and showing its clinical value, ImmunoCAP is perceived as "Gold standard" for in vitro IgE testing[8][9] The RAST is a radioimmunoassay test to detect specific IgE antibodies to suspected or known allergens for the purpose of guiding a diagnosis about allergy.
[citation needed] The suspected allergen is bound to an insoluble material and the patient's serum is added.