Symptoms in a hay-fever material and the pollen counts from a regional pollen trap

Daily grass pollen counts, with a Burkard 7-day-Volumetric Recording Pollen trap situated 15 meters over street level in a town with 35.000 inhabitants, were undertaken in 1979. 58 patients with nasal allergy due to grasses were treated with disodium cromoglycate, hyposensitization with an aluminiumhydroxide-adsorbed allergen extract of timothy, tall meadow oat and orchard grass, or combinations there of after randomisation. The results of the therapeutic trial are not yet available. All patients were allowed to use disodium cromoglycate eye drops 2%, and chlorpheniramine tablets 2 mg as supplementary treatment when symptoms were troublesome. The patients kept diaries over the intensity of symptoms and use of medicine. There is highly significant correlation between the pollen count, symptom scores and symptom scores correlated for supplementary medicinal treatment. On this basis it may be stated that the moderate symptoms noted during this treatment are on average precipitated by from 21-29 grasspollen per cubic meter of air, and that the placing of the pollen trap is representative for the exposure of the average patient in the is a This is condition for using our pollen counts in an analysis for a pollen forecast.