Long-standing hay fever may impede nasal airflow

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with persistent allergic rhinitis -- better known as hay fever -- may experience a progressive worsening of nasal airflow depending on how long they have the disorder, according to Italian researchers.

Dr. Giorgio Ciprandi, of Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria San Martino, Genoa, Italy, and colleagues assessed nasal function (i.e., nasal airflow) in 100 patients with persistent allergic rhinitis. Half the patients had short-term rhinitis (not more than 2 years) and half were long-term sufferers (rhinitis of at least 6 years' duration).

Those with long-term rhinitis had significantly lower nasal airflow values than those with short-term rhinitis; the average airflow rates were 348 versus 466 milliliters per second, the team reports in the medical journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Looked at another way, the data showed that the duration of hay fever was significantly shorter in individuals with moderate obstruction than in those with severe obstruction.

A reduced response to decongestants for treating allergic rhinitis may indicate that nasal passages have undergone remodeling, Ciprandi and his colleagues explain. "Preliminary findings of another study conducted in allergic rhinitis patients would seem to support this idea, as a progressive reduction of nasal airflow reversibility significantly depends on duration of the disorder," they write.

SOURCE: Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, June 2008.