UNLABELLED Antihistamines and nasal decongestants are well-established therapeutics in allergic rhinitis. However, no data are available which directly compare the effect size of the single substances with their combination in a single study including placebo (PLA) treatment. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a combination of cetirizine (CET) and pseudoephedrine (P...

BackgroundAllergen-specific immunotherapy is a disease-modifying treatment that induces long-term T-cell tolerance.ObjectiveWe sought to evaluate the role of circulating CXCR5+PD-1+ T follicular helper (cTFH) and regulatory (TFR) cells following grass pollen subcutaneous (SCIT) sublingual (SLIT) accompanying changes in their chromatin landscape.MethodsPhenotype function cTFH were initially eval...

Local allergic rhinitis is a newly described type of rhinitis involving nasal production of specific immunoglobulin (slg) E antibodies in the absence of atopy. It can affect patients previously diagnosed with non-allergic rhinitis. Evidence for this entity is supported by clinical symptoms, local production of slgE, a type 2 helperT cell inflammatory pattern in nasal secretions during natural e...

The aim of this study was to evaluate rhinomanometric responses to nasal allergen provocation in children with allergic rhinitis sensitized to house dust mite. We studied 51 children, aged 6-16 years (mean: 11.5 +/- 2.6 years), with clinical symptoms of perennial allergic rhinitis without asthma and 20 non-atopic healthy controls in the same age range (mean: 11.8 +/- 3.8 years). All of the pati...

Seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR) to the Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria japonica (JC) pollen is an IgE-mediated type I allergy affecting nasal mucosa. However, the molecular events underlying its development remain unclear. We sought to identify SAR-associated altered gene expression in nasal epithelial cells during natural exposure to JC pollen. We recruited study participants in 2009 and 2010 and...

Specific nasal provocation testing (NPT) consists of eliciting a response from the nasal mucosa by controlled exposure to allergens. It is indicated in the diagnostic confirmation of allergic rhinitis and when discrepancies arise or difficulties exist in the assessment of a patient's medical history and the results of skin and/or serological tests. The technique is also applied to evaluate sens...

The ragweed- and histamine-induced decreases in nasal patency in cohorts of ragweed-sensitized and nonsensitized dogs were assessed. The volume of nasal airways (V(NA)) was assessed by acoustic rhinometry and resistance to airflow (R(NA)) by anterior rhinomanometry. Histamine delivered to the nasal passages of five dogs caused a rapid and prolonged increase in R(NA) (0.75 +/- 0.26 to 3.56 +/- 0...

BACKGROUND The Environmental Exposure Unit (EEU) in Kingston, Ontario, Canada is a controlled allergen challenge facility (CACF) that has been previously clinically validated for the use of ragweed and grass pollen in clinical studies. In this study we aim to validate the use of birch pollen to challenge allergic participants. METHODS A total of 59 volunteers were screened and 38 birch allerg...

BACKGROUND Secretory leucocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), which is present in many physiological fluids including saliva, sputum and nasal discharge, is the most effective inhibitor of chymase. Previously, we demonstrated that chymase is able to cleave SLPI and that the cleaved portion, cSLPI, is a biomarker of chymase activity. OBJECTIVE We investigated the potential of cSLPI as a biomarker ...

I read with interest the recent article by HANF et al. [1], demonstrating the significant inhibition of both allergen challenge-induced nasal symptoms and the increase of human serum albumin in nasal lavage fluid after allergen challenge, in addition to the significant reduction in tumour necrosis factor-a levels in basal nasal lavage fluid, following administration of omalizumab. However, it i...