Differences in airway inflammation according to atopic status in patients with chronic rhinitis

Table of Contents > Abs + Ref    |    |  Full Text       |      Asia Pac Allergy. 2012 Oct;2(4):248-255. Published online 2012 October 31.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5415/apallergy.2012.2.4.248  Copyright © 2012. Asia Pacific Association of Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology. Differences in airway inflammation according to atopic status in patients with chronic rhinitis Jae-Woo Kwon,1,2,3 Tae-Wan Kim,1,2 Kyung-Mook Kim,1,2 Jae-Woo Jung,1,2 Sang-Heon Cho,1,2 Kyung-Up Min,1,2 You-Young Kim,1,2 and Heung-Woo Park1,2 1Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 110-799, Korea. 2Institute of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Seoul National University Medical Research Center, Seoul 110-460, Korea. 3Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam 463-707, Korea.  Correspondence: Heung-Woo Park. Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 103 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-799, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2072-0699, Fax: +82-2-742-2912, Email:guinea71@snu.ac.kr  Received September 14, 2012; Accepted October 18, 2012. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.  This article has been cited by 1 article in   Abstract Background Chronic rhinitis is a heterogeneous group of diseases that cause nasal inflammation. And the nose may be a window into the lung in the concept of "one airway one disease." Objective This study was conducted to evaluate differences between the different forms of chronic rhinitis in terms of lower airway inflammation. Methods Patients that attended the allergy clinic and presented with moderate/severe persistent rhinitis symptoms for more than 1 year were enrolled. The patients with chronic rhinitis were classified into two groups (house dust mites [HDM]-sensitive allergic rhinitis [AR] or non-allergic rhinitis [NAR]) according to the presence of atopy, and additionally according to nasal polyposis and airway hyperresponsiveness, respectively. Medical records were reviewed and the mRNA expression levels of IL-5, IFN-γ, TGF-β1, IL-17A, and IL-25 were evaluated in induced sputum samples in each group. Results Induced sputum samples of 53 patients were evaluated. Patients with NAR were significantly older than patients with HDM-sensitive AR (p < 0.05). Nasal polyposis was more prevalent in NAR patients than in HDM-sensitive AR patients (10.2% vs. 62.5%, p < 0.001). The expression levels of IL-17A mRNA were higher in NAR patients, regardless of the presence of airway hyperresponsiveness (p = 0.005). Conclusion These results suggest that patients with different forms of chronic rhinitis could have different inflammatory environments in their lower airway and NAR patients might have bronchial inflammation related to the elevated levels of IL-17A compared to HDM-sensitive AR patients. Keywords: Rhinitis, Allergy, IL-17A, Nasal polyps, Sputum, Asthma.