This study was performed to quantify the number of neutrophils and eosinophils in nasal
secretions from paediatric patients with perennial rhinitis, under infected and non infected
conditions, to differentiate infected bacterial from viral rhinitis and allergic from infected
rhinitis.
Nasal secretions and mucosal scrapings of 93 children up to 12 years with symptoms and signs
of perennial rhinitis were subjected to cytological analysis. The smears were stained with H
and E and 10 HPF’s were examined. Grading was done utilizing the semiquantitative nasal
cytology grading score of Meltzer. 21 healthy children were used as controls. The material was
also subjected to bacteriological analysis. Additional ancillary investigations done were a CBC
and an absolute eosinophil count.
There were distinctive differences in the grading scores between the cases of perennial rhinitis
and the control groups, both were significantly higher in the former, we were able to differentiate
between infected bacterial and viral rhinitis on the basis of bacteriological results.
However, the neutrophil scores were higher in all the cases of perennial rhinitis under both
infected and noninfected conditions and we did not get a good clinicopathological correlation,
on the basis of a predominance of eosinophils or neutrophils, of infected vs allergic rhinitis.
Thus, nasal cytology coupled with bacteriology is a quick, simple,