알레르기비염 환자의 면역치료 후 증상개선 효과에 대한 주관적 평가

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Subjective assessment of the effects of immunotherapy on symptoms in allergic rhinitis patients

Park In-Suk Advisor : Prof. Moon,Kyung-Rye, M.D., Ph.D. Department of Alternative Medicine, Graduate School of Health Sciences Chosun University

Treatments of allergic rhinitis until now have mostly been avoidance, medicinal treatments and immunotherapy. Even though avoidance is considered as the most important and comfortable treatment, it is very difficult to destroy the original antigen completely. In addition, medicinal treatments are used for ameliorating symptoms, but they are by no means complete in terms of the immunological origin.

On the other hand, immunotherapy is performed through subcutaneously injecting causative antigen. It is the only method for fundamental treatment that maintains immumity relation for a long time, and its effects are proven by much research.

When estimating the effects of immunotherapy, it is necessary to remind oneself that immunotherapy is a very important indicator for the objective examinations and subjective symptoms of the patient.

This study aims to estimate the current effects of immunotherapy using a questionaire to primary measure the subjective symptoms of the patients before and after immunotherapy. Then the study compared the degree of symptomal improvement according to the period of immnotherapy, Finally it analyzed the satisfactory level of patients with perennial allergic rhinitis & seasonal allergic rhinitis and examined a point of time they felt the effects of immunotherapy for the first time.

The subjects of this study are the selected 124 patients ages six and older who had received immunotharapy for at least a year from March, 2008 to August, 2011. The patients were diagnosed with perennial allergic rhinitis and seasonal allergic rhinitis using the skin prick test or the MAST test in ENT department at Kwang-Ju Christian Hospital.

The results of this study showed that 89.5% of the total patients experienced improvements in symptoms after immunotherapy. This is similar to a previous study on the effects of immunotherapy that had resulted in 70.2% of satisfactory rate. There was no statistically significant difference among three group regarding the length of treatment.

In terms of comparing perennial allergic rhinitis with seasonal allergic rhinitis, the prevalence of seasonal allergic rhinitis was slightly higher than other rhinitis. However, there was no statistically significant difference about that, meaning that this study is comparable to the previous study.

The prevalence of perennial allergic rhinitis among the subjects was 71.8% which is higher than that of seasonal allergic rhinitis at the initial point of the survey. If a reassessent of this study is carried out controlling the number of samples to be the same for each condition from the beginning, the results of this study would have reflected the preious study more precisely.

Experience of initial symptomal improvement slightly varied according to the treatment length. However, the comprehensive analysis of the study demonstrated alleviated nasal allergic symptoms among the subjects from 3 months to 1 year after immunotherapy, similar to the previous study.

To promote the immunotherapy, the development of effective treatment methods is necessary. immunotherapy will be more widely adapted with continous care and education. In-depth studies and effective programs should be arranged in order to improve the overall satisfaction.