The majority of the patients with allergic rhinitis is treated for a long time with oral antibiotics before they are referred to the allergology outpatient clinic. In Poland, bacteriological examination of the nasal and pharyngeal swabs is the basic and in the majority of the cases the only one applied to these patients. Because of the above mentioned reasons, we performed a pilot study of the bacteriological nasal swabs in 106 patients with allergic rhinitis. At the time of the study the patients were symptom free. They also did not present any clinical signs of the respiratory tract infections and were followed-up at the Allergology Outpatient Clinic, University School of Medicine in Warsaw. In 52.8% of the patients pathogenic bacteria were discovered. None of the patients suffered from the respiratory tract infection during one month following the examination.

Keywords: atopy, bacteriological flora