Allergic Rhinitis and Nasal Provocation: Correlation among Objective Symptoms, Mediators, and Eosinophils during the Early- and Late-Phase Reaction after Nasal Provocation in Allergic Patients

Today, the most commonly used sample technique to collect nasal secretions is

the nasal lavage technique. With this technique it has been only possible to give

qualitative data because of an unknown dilution factor. Biewenga et al. (1)

designed a new aspiration system to evaluate protein and immunoglobuline con-

centrations in human nasal secretions. This direct aspiration system combines the

advantages of minimal irritation of the nasal mucosa with the convenience of

determine mediator concentrations per gram of secretion. With this technique

in mind the authors tried to determine the exact concentrations of selected

mediators in the nasal secretions by using the nasal microsuction technique

before and after nasal allergen challenge (NAC). It was also attempted to corre-

late this quantitative data with objective nasal symptoms. In 10 normal test sub-

jects they found the following concentrations for five different mediators:

histamine 19 ng/g (range 7.5-32), tryptase 0.0 mU/g (range 0-11), leukotriene C4 (LTC4) 5.7 ng/g (range 3.6-13), prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) 477 pg/g (range 220-788), and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) 105 ng/g (range 2-281).