Table 7.

Allergic respiratory disease (ARD): key points

Allergic respiratory disease (ARD) includes patients with clinical manifestations of rhinoconjunctivitis and/or bronchial asthma of allergic etiology

The optimal approach to ARD involves the simultaneous assessment of the upper and lower respiratory tract, irrespective of whether there are symptoms at a given time in a given patient

The clinical features of patients with ARD depend (in part) on the allergen that caused the symptoms and the characteristics of the exposure

The causative allergens of ARD must play a greater role in the choice of treatment

Decisions on drug treatment in patients with ARD may be affected by the clinical severity of previous allergen exposures and not follow the phased strategy suggested by guidelines

Allergen immunotherapy is a comprehensive etiological approach that can modify ARD. Failure of drug therapy is not a prerequisite for allergen immunotherapy in ARD patients