The Similarities And Differences Of Allergic Rhinitis And Airway Inflammation In Asthma And The Impact Of Inhaled Corticosteroid Therapy

[ Background ]The prevalence of allergic rhinitis and asthma has increased a lot recently and brought a great impact on the human health and quality of life worldwidely. As these two diseases often coexist, they have a definite association in the sight of epidemiology. It also supports the similarity in pathophysiologic mechanism as both being the IgE mediated esoinophil inflammations. More recently, they have been regarded as the same systemic allergic syndrome with different clinical manifestations in the upper and lower airways. However, the prevalence and the symptoms of these two diseases are not always consistent. To determine the similarities and differences of these two diseases is very important in the management and prevention of them.Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is a newly developed non-invasive measurement to evaluate the inflammatory status of airway. It has been found that the variances of some biomakers in EBC are associated with the severity of inflammation in the airways or lungs of some respiratory diseases. Comparable with the classical methods such as collection of sputum, induced sputum, and bronchoalvoelar lavage fluid, EBC has the advantages of noninvasiveness and easy-to-repeat.[ Objectives ]1. To investigate the relationship between the seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR) and seasonal allergic rhinitis/asthma (SAR+SAA) in the pollen season through the lung function test and the inflammation markers in the blood and EBC.2. To investigate the effect of inhaled glucocorticosteroids on the SAR and SAR+SAA through the lung function test and the inflammation markers in the blood and EBC.3. To investigate the relationship between the SAR and SAR+SAA out of the pollen season through the lung function test and the inflammation markers in the blood and EBC.