Review of prevalence and management of allergenic pollen in Iran

Review of prevalence and management of allergenic pollen in Iran
Mehdi Dehghani Kazemi,^1,* Fardis Teifoori,²
1. University of Zabol
2. Medical Diagnosis Laboratory
Introduction: The importance of pollen grains in developing respiratory allergy has been well documented all over the world. Pollen grains are the most common and the strongest allergy carriers in most countries worldwide, with a high Prevalence rate among allergic patients. While clinical diagnosis of most allergy can be accurately made, specific geographical implicated allergens and predictions of immunotherapy treatment response elude the currently available diagnostic and therapeutic tools for the care of allergy patients across different regions of the world. Therefore, there is a need for the discovery of geographical allergens for accurate disease diagnosis, prognosis and predicting treatment response.
Methods: The aim of this study is to introduce the most allergenic pollen grains in Iran based on published papers in the area and provide a basis for prevention strategies and immunotherapeutic treatments.
Results: . According to available data, allergies to pollen grains comprise up to 86.7% of the allergic patients in various cities of Iran depending on phytogeography and environmental conditions. Three major sources of pollen allergens in different parts of Iran are 1) anemophilous taxa of Asteraceae and Amaranthaceae particularly Artemisia, Kali tragus, Chenopodium album, Bassia scoparia, Amaranthus spp., of which Pollen of Kali tragus induces the highest amounts of allergic rhinitis in Iranian patients, 2) the widespread non-cereal grasses specially Phleum pratense and Lolium perenne and 3) the anemophilous trees such as gymnosperms, Phoenix dactylifera, Prosopis juliflora, Fraxinus excelsior, Olea europaea and Platanus orientalis.
Conclusion: Considering the biological and ecological characteristics of these allergy-inducing plants we conclude that our knowledge of the distribution of these taxa is of little help in identifying the allergen source since most of these plants are ruderal, weeds or ornamental and park trees. In contrast, for the reason that these plant-groups bloom in considerably separate periods, flowering time plays a key role in recognizing the allergen sources, hence taking appropriate preventive policies, providing proper management and applying more accurate immunotherapeutic treatments in allergic patients.
Keywords: Pollen allergy, allergens, anemophilous plants, immunotherapy