Specific local immunotherapy in the treatment of hay fever

The authors refer results of a 3-year study carried out on ten patients suffering from hay fever, diagnosed by means of skin tests, specific nasal provocation and serum RAST who underwent specific local immunotherapy consisting of application of an aqueous allergenic extract, the initial level of which was based on threshold values resulting from the nasal provocation test. The two-monthly check ups were based on the evaluation of mucociliary clearance, anterior rhinorheomanometry, specific nasal provocation and the test of Maunsell for blocking antibodies, as well as on the drawing up of a daily symptomatological diary for each patient. The results were extremely interesting: subsidence of symptoms during the pollinating season, an increase in the number of blocking serum antibodies and of threshold values relative to specific nasal provocation. Conductance and mucociliary clearance, which were both decidedly pathological before beginning the local immunotherapy, slowly returned to the norm. The authors, furthermore, recall that the use of disodium cromoglycate during the first few months of specific local immunotherapy which allows them to reach doses 5-7 times greater than those obtainable with the above mentioned form of treatment, offers uncertain advantages as far as local and above all general immunity are concerned and this alone does not justify the use of nasal applications in the treatment of bronchial asthma of allergic origin.