[Mastocytes in the diagnosis of chronic rhinitis].

In order to detect the allergic etiology of the disease, we looked for mastocytes in 18 patients with chronic vasomotor rhinitis 5 of these patients also had nasal polyposis. Mastocytes were found neither in the nasal smear of any patients nor in the scarification smear nor in the nasal smear of any patients nor in the scarification smear nor in the smear of the biopsy material, but they were found in the deeper layers of the nasal mucosa. They were regularly in the stroma and always with lymphoplasm-histocyte infiltrations. Prick-tests were negative in 13 out of 18 tested patients. By a follow up of 13 patients with chronic rhinitis it was established that findings of 7 patients were in correlation. In 3 patients skin tests, were positive and mastocytes present, while in 4 patients both of these parameters were negative. In 2 patients skin tests were positive and mastocytes negative, while in the other 4 patients skin tests were negative with a positive mastocyte finding, which points to allergy. Finally, in patients with nasal polyposis skin tests were negative with mastocytes positive in 4 out of 5 patients. The gathered results reveal that mastocytes were found in 11 out of 18 examined patients, that is in 61%, which is an encouraging fact and demands a further follow up and checking in a larger number of cases.