mediLexicon reports that ARIA (Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma) urges doctors to consider the strong link between allergic rhinitis and asthma.

ARIA is a worldwide non-governmental organization that works in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to educate and implement evidence-based management of allergic rhinitis in conjunction with asthma.

ARIA presented new treatment guidelines at the recent European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) conference in Sweden.

ARIA Chairman Professor Jean Bousquet of France says, ‘People with rhinitis frequently develop asthma and people with asthma frequently develop rhinitis. In fact, it is possible to detect evidence of inflammation in the lungs of rhinitis patients even when they have no overt asthma symptoms. We therefore recommend that patients with persistent rhinitis should be evaluated for asthma and those with persistent asthma be assessed for rhinitis.’

The ARIA guidelines state that up to 80% of people with asthma also have rhinitis. Professor Bousquet says, ‘There has been a real need for a global document that highlights the interactions between the upper and lower airways in terms of diagnosis, epidemiology, common risk factors, management and prevention. I am pleased that this new update does exactly that.’

The quotes from Professor Bousquet remind me of a recent interview with Dr. Wellington S. Tichenor, who explained the Unified Theory of Respiratory Disease: ‘The belief that the entire respiratory tract