Data sources
Symptoms, medication, doctor’s
diagnoses of allergic diseases and environmental exposures were assessed
using interviewer-administered
questionnaires. Information on sleep disturbance, impairment of daily
activities, leisure and/or sport, impairment of school or work and
presence of troublesome symptoms was collected to define the severity of
AR. Data regarding tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy were collected from
the medical records.
All children underwent skin prick testing (SPT) to common aeroallergens
for our region(16), including house dust mites (Dermatophagoides
pteronyssinus and Dermatophagoides farinae ), grass pollen mix
(Phleum pratense, Poa pratensis, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne,
Festuca pratensis, and Avena eliator) weed pollen mix (Artemisia,
Urtica, Taraxacum, Plantago) tree pollen mix (Alnus glutinosa, Corylus
avellane, Populus alba, Ulmus minor, Betula alba) molds (Alternaria,
Cladosporium, Penicillium, and Aspergillus) and animal dander (cat and
dog). Histamine (10 mg/ml of histamine phosphate) and 0.9% saline were
used as positive and negative controls, respectively. Total serum IgE
level was measured using ImmunoCAP (Phadia AB, Uppsala, Sweden).
Blood eosinophil counts were determined from Coulter Counter (Beckman
Coulter, Fullerton, CA, USA) leucocyte measurements.
Pulmonary function tests were performed using Zan 100 spirometer (Nspire
Health, Oberthulba, Germany) according to recommendations by the
European Respiratory Society(17). Three best efforts were recorded, and
the highest value (presented as percent predicted according to age,
gender, weight, and height(18)) was used in the analysis.