Doctors have found that 66 percent of asthma cases are caused by rhinitis, and that allergic rhinitis is the main reason many respiratory diseases relapse.

Prof. Wang Qiuping with a People's Liberation Army hospital based in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, found in her research that 70 percent of the asthma patients in China also suffer from allergic rhinitis.

"The percentage is as high as 100 percent in Europe," said Prof. Wang, who got her doctor's degree in France.

Only one out of all the 106 asthma patients she tracked in China had received medical treatment for rhinitis, she said. "In fact, doctors seldom even thought about the cause and effect between rhinitis and asthma."

But the relation has aroused the attention of researchers worldwide and the World Health Organization in 2001 called for coordinated treatment of the two diseases in the same respiratory tract, she said.

Meanwhile, allergic rhinitis and other diseases of the nose could also lead to bronchial dilation and worsen the situation for many respiratory disease sufferers, according to the professor.

"Treatment of nose diseases is therefore crucial for the treatment and control of other respiratory diseases," she added.

An estimated 300 million people worldwide are suffering from asthma and the disease is blamed for one in every 250 deaths globally, according to a report issued at the Fourth Triennial World Asthma Meeting held in Bangkok earlier this year.

Asthma is a chronic lung disease characterized by recurrent breathing problems and symptoms such as breathlessness, wheezing, chest tightness and coughing. The rapid increase in asthma prevalence around the world is one of the biggest mysteries in modern medicine.

(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2004)