CLINICAL AND NASAL IRRIGATION FLUID FINDINGS IN PERENNIAL ALLERGIC RHINITIS

Ten patients with perennial allergic rhinitis and 10 healthy subjects were studied to determine most discriminative nasal irrigation fluid m arker(s) and to compare samples that were collected as baseline and ov er a I-hour period, every 15 minutes. The latter were pooled and desig nated I-hour sample. In the nasal irrigation we investigated the follo wing inflammatory cells and soluble mediators: eosinophils, neutrophil s, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor interleukin-4, int erleukin-6 interleukin-8, ECP, EPX, MPO, leukotriene C-4, leukotriene B-4, prostaglandin E-2, tryptase and fibrinogen. Patients with PAR wer e then treated for 2 weeks with the topical nasal steroid. The only ma rker that discriminated patients with perennial allergic rhinitis and healthy subjects was eosinophil count (EO%): correspondingly 14.01 +/- 5.8 and 0.18 +/- 0.09, (M +/- SD). Difference between the studied gro ups did not depend on the time of irrigation, baseline or I-hour. EO% was also the only marker of a clinically successful treatment with the nasal steroid, 14.01 +/- 5.8 and 0.87 +/- 0.4, before and after treat ment respectively. We conclude that EO% is the most sensitive inflamma tory marker of perennial allergic rhinitis, and that baseline nasal ir rigation can be used to study nasal mucosal inflammation.