Quantitative cytology of nasal secretions and scrapings in Japanese cedar pollinosis patients.

To explore the dynamics of the cellular response to natural allergen exposure, the authors of this study performed quantitative cytology in both the nasal secretions and nasal scrapings of 16 normal control subjects and 23 Japanese cedar pollinosis patients before and during the pollen season. In nasal scrapings, the number of metachromatic cells increased significantly during the pollen season, although there was no significant difference between the normal subjects and the preseason pollinosis patients. The cell differential count in the patients with pollinosis showed that lymphocytes were predominant in scrapings; however, the majority of inflammatory cells in the nasal secretions were neutrophils before the season and eosinophils during the season. The study findings suggest that the appearance of metachromatic cells in nasal scrapings is specific to the pollen exposure and that the cytology in nasal secretions is significantly different from that in nasal scrapings.