S198 Abstracts J ALLERGY CLIN IMMUNOL

FEBRUARY 2004

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AY

690 Determinants of Bronchial Hyperresponsiveness (BHR) inPatients With Allergic Rhinitis (AR)

N. Mete1, O. Gulbahar1, A. Sin1, M. Erdinc2, F. Sebik1, A. Kokuludag1;1Internal Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, EgeUniversity Medical Faculty, Izmir, TURKEY, 2Chest Diseases, Ege Uni-versity Medical Faculty, Izmir, TURKEY.RATIONALE: Patients with AR and BHR have a higher risk of develop-ing asthma. In this study, we investigated whether reactivity to aeroaller-gens in skin prick test (SPT) and serum eosinophil cationic protein (sECP)levels could be used to predict BHR in AR.METHODS: Fifty-nine consecutive patients diagnosed with AR betweenFebruary 2001 and February 2002 were studied. SPTs were performedusing grass, tree, weed, parietaria, Alternaria, Aspergillus, mites and catand dog dander extracts. Methacholine challenge test was performedusing spirometry.RESULTS: Methacholine induced BHR was detected in 23 patients(39%). Of the 59 patients, 14 had one positive SPT response, 35 had 2-4and 10 had >4 positive responses. There was a significant inverse correla-tion between methacholine PC20 doses and the number of positive SPTs(p=0.031, r=-0.28). BHR(+) patients had a mean of 4 positive SPTs whileBHR(-) patients had a mean of 2.6 (p=0.04). Of the 23 BHR(+) patients,39% had >4 positive SPTs. In contrast, only 2.7% of the BHR(-) patientshad >4 positive SPTs (p=0.0001). The mean methacholine PC20 dose was5.05 ± 9.72mg/ml in patients with >4 positive SPTs, 23.4 ± 14mg/ml inpatients with 2-4 and 23.6 ± 13.4mg/ml in patients with one positiveresponse (p=0.001 for >4 vs. 2-4, P=0.002 for >4 vs. 1). There was no cor-relation between sECP levels and methacholine PC20 doses.CONCLUSIONS: AR patients with SPT responses to a higher number ofallergens are more likely to have BHR. Whether the number of positiveSPT responses correlates with the risk of developing asthma in ARremains to be determined.Funding: Self-funded