Role of kinins in seasonal allergic rhinitis: icatibant, a bradykinin B2 receptor antagonist, abolishes the hyperresponsiveness and nasal eosinophilia induced by antigen

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Bradykinin and Icatibant in the context of seasonal allergies in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers sought to investigate the effect of icatibant on the response to nasal antigen challenge in subjects with seasonal allergic rhinitis.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults.

Patients allergic to grass pollen antigen (n = 9-13) were included in a double-blind, randomized-block, placebo-controlled, crossover study outside the pollen season.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Bradykinin and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Bradykinin.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Bradykinin could be set against what happens without it.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Bradykinin and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Subjects were then challenged with antigen or diluent (control), and their responses were monitored by using acoustic rhinometry.

Six hours later, nasal lavage fluid was collected and quantified for inflammatory cells and various inflammatory mediators (kinin, eosinophil cationic protein, IL-5, and IL-8).

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Aerosols, Antigens, Bradykinin, Bradykinin Receptor Antagonists, Bronchial Hyperreactivity, Eosinophilia and Kinins.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Bradykinin and Icatibant in people with seasonal allergies.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Bradykinin compound page and the Icatibant compound page, Seasonal allergies research.