Allergic rhinitis: aetiology, predisposing and risk factors.

The reason for examining the predisposing and risk factors that affect the prevalence of allergic rhinitis is to help understand its cause and prevent its occurrence particularly in the light of the marked increase that is taking place in the prevalence of this condition. The epidemiology in different population groups and studying patient's family histories may give us clues about what factors predispose people to developing allergic rhinitis. Furthermore we can gain a better understanding of the disease mechanisms from the histological and molecular tissue studies that relate to allergic rhinitis.