アレルギー性鼻炎に伴う後鼻漏に対するロイコトリエン受容体拮抗薬の臨床的効果

抄録

Patients with postnasal drip syndrome occasionally feel the uncomfortable and intractable sensation of foreign body in the nasal cavity. It is assumed that the cause of such sensation is mainly from chronic sinusitis or allergic rhinitis. Because the incidence of postnasal drip due to allergic rhinitis has not been considered to be clinically significant, no detailed examinations of such cases have so far been carried out. However, it is recognized that patients with allergic rhinitis often complain the subjective symptoms of postnasal drip and show deterioration the degree of quality of life. We therefore consider that postnasal drip symptoms in allergic patients are clinically important.
We herein conducted a clinical study on nine allergic patients who chiefly complained postnasal drip. We evaluated effectiveness of administration of leukotriene receptor antagonists for the treatment of postnasal drip symptoms in those patients. The subjective symptoms as evaluated by VAS scales remarkably improved in due course. Twelve weeks after treatment, improvement rates of the subjective symptom scores and objective measure were 88.9% and 88.9%, respectively. Based on our findings, it is suggested that several action of leukotrienes might be closely associated with the onset and prolongation of postnasal drip.