COMPARISON OF OLFACTORY FUNCTION IN PATIENTS WITH SEASONAL AND PERENNIAL ALLERGIC RHINITIS

Hyposmia is a common symptom in allergic rhinitis. However, little is known about differences in the olfactory function of patients with sea sonal or perennial allergy. A prospective controlled study was perform ed on 28 patients with allergic rhinitis to grass pollen and on 47 pat ients with allergic rhinitis to mites. Sixty-six healthy volunteers se rved as a control. Olfactory function was evaluated by a modified Conn ecticut Chemosensory Clinical Research Center testing procedure for th reshold, identification, and discrimination. The grass pollen-allergic patients were tested preseasonally and after 3 weeks of intraseasonal grass pollen exposure; the mite-allergic patients and the volunteers were tested once. In the mite allergies, olfactory threshold, identifi cation, and discrimination tests were significantly worse than in the volunteers (all P<0.0001). In the grass pollen allergies, the results in olfactory identification and discrimination tests were not differen t from the controls if tested out of the season (both P>0.05). However , in threshold testing (P=0.0139), the results were worse. Intraseason ally, the grass pollen allergies showed a significant decrease in thre shold, identification (both P<0.0001), and discrimination testing (P=0 .0029). If the intraseasonal pollen allergies were compared to the mit e allergies, they showed better results in identification (P=0.0087) a nd threshold (P<0.0001) tests, but worse results in discrimination tes ting (P=0.0002). Therefore, the different kind of allergen exposure se ems to result in a different pattern of allergic olfactory dysfunction .