The non-specific hypersensitivity of the upper and lower airways in Reinke's edema: preliminary results.

Reinke's edema is characterized by swelling of the vocal cords, which generally is bilateral but often is more pronounced in one cord. The disease is named after the anatomist Reinke, who undertook a morphological study of the subepithelial connective tissue of the vocal cords in order to investigate edematous spread. In general, swelling of the vocal cords develops gradually and may increase considerably over months or even years. To evaluate an eventual relation ship between airways (nasal and bronchial) and Reinke's edema of the vocal cords, the authors studied 9 subjects suffering from Reinke's edema. These patients underwent to an accurate clinical history, skin-test for inhalant pollens and mycetes to evaluate the eventual presence of specific allergies, non-specific nasal provocation test with Histamine, baseline RRM to evaluate the non-specific nasal hypersensitivity and besides the RRM values has been considered the number of sneezes after Histamine stimulation, finally a bronchial provocation test with ultrasonic fog to evaluate the presence of non-specific hypersensitivity of the lower airways.