Abstract
Objectives: 1. To investigate the correlation between ragweed pollen concentration and conjunctival, nasal and asthma symptoms severity in patients allergic to ragweed using ambient pollen exposure in the Milan area during the 2014 ragweed season; 2. to calculate the pollen / symptom thresholds and 3. to assess the effectiveness of ragweed Allergen Immuno Therapy (AIT).Patients: 66 subjects allergic to Amb a 1 enrolled in the study and were divided into two cohorts: AIT treated (24) and non-AIT treated (42).Measurements: Pollen counts and daily symptom/medication patient diaries. Autoregressive Distributed Lag Models were used to develop predictive models of daily symptoms and to evaluate the short-term effects of temporal variations in pollen concentration on the onset of symptoms. Results: We found significant correlations between ragweed pollen load and the intensity of symptoms, for all three symptom categories respectively, both in non-AIT treated (𝛕= 0.341, 0.352, 0.721 and ρ = 0.48, 0.432, 0.881, p-value < 0.001) and in AIT treated patients (O= 0.46, 0.610, 0.66 and ρ = 0.692, 0.805, 0.824; p-value < 0.001). In both cohorts, we observed a positive correlation between the number of symptoms reported and drug use. Mean symptom levels were significantly greater in non-AIT treated than in AIT treated patients (p < 0.001) for all symptom categories. Pollen concentration thresholds for three symptom severity levels were calculated.Conclusions: Ragweed pollen concentration is predictive of symptom severity in ragweed (Amb a 1) allergy patients. AIT treated patients had significantly reduced mean symptom levels compared to non-AIT patients.
Symptoms in pediatric asthmatics and air pollution: differences in effects by symptom severity, anti-inflammatory medication use and particulate averaging time.
