Abstract

Background and Purpose Allergic rhinitis is well known a relatively controllable chronic disease. Although a number of methods for treating alleric rhinitis have been tried, many patients have not been satisfied with their treatments. Therefore, this study was tried to evaluate the effect of Cooperative medical system of Oriental and Western medicine and to develop new diagnosis protocol for treatment of allergic rhinitis. Methods We measured improvement rate and Acoustic Rhinometry after allergen induction test and performed filter paper test as nonspecific hypersensitivity test with 60 patients who are allergic to house dust mite. Patients were divided into two groups, treated with Western medicine only and treated with Western and Oriental herbal medicine. For group with Western medicine only, antihistamine for one week and local steroid medicine for two weeks were prescribed. For group with combined medicine, Oriental herbal medicine was prescribed according to patient's constitution, with Western medicine. After all treatments, above tests were re-performed and then improvement rate was compared. Results and conclusion We observed better results in group treated with Western and Oriental herbal medicines, when it was compared improvement rate and the alteration of total nasal volume through Acoustic Rhinometry after allergen induction test. In filter paper test, there was no significant difference between both groups. In conclusion, we showed the additive effect of Oriental herbal medicine without any severe side effects when it was compared with the treatment with Western medicine only. In this study, we set only two patient groups, but further study is required to create various experimental groups and to compare with each group. We suggest that it might enhance to understand improved effect of Oriental herbal medicine in the therapy of allergic rhinitis.