With the involvement 49 patients not responding to ordinary antiallergic medicine therapy and suffering for at least 2 years from moderate or severe ragweed allergy, a randomized, double-blind placebo controlled study was conducted (Andrea I Koreck, Zsanett Csoma, Laszlo Bodai, Ferenc Ignacz, Anna Sz. Kenderessy, Edit Kadocsa, Gabor Szabo, Zsolt Bor, Anna Erdei, Barnabas Szony, Bernhard Homey, Attila Dobozy, Lajos Kemeny: Rhinophototherapy: a new therapeutic tool for the management of allergic rhinitis. J Allergy Clin Immunol, March 2005, Vol. 115, Number 3: 541-47.). The clinical diagnosis was based on the positive skin Prick test and the increased specific IgE level.

During the study, anatomical disorder of the nasal cavity, asthma, perennial rhinitis, and infection of the lower or upper the respiratory tract within four weeks prior to the beginning of the study were exclusive criteria. The following patients were excluded from the study: patients taking systematic corticosteroids within four weeks, local corticosteroids or membrane stabilizers within two weeks, antihistamines within a weeks prior to the study, or patients who received immunotherapy in the previous five years. The study was conducted in Szeged, in the blooming season of ragweed, with a pollen number over 50/cm³. The nasal cavity was irradiated with an increasing dose of Rhinolight light, while the placebo group was irradiated with low-dose visible light. The basis of evaluation was the assessment of the amplitude of individual symptom severity. Compared to the initial values in the Rhinolight group, there was a significant improvement in clinical symptoms such as sneezing, rhinorrhea and nasal itching. During the treatment period, minor improvement in nasal obstruction was observed. At the end of the treatment period, in the placebo group none of the clinical symptoms were significantly improved, but significant improvement was observed in nasal obstruction. The TNS significantly decreased following the Rhinolight treatments, while it didn’t in the placebo group. Also, improvement in some of the clinical symptoms and the TNS was seen based on the evaluation of patients. Based on the global assessment conducted by the physician at the end of the treatment period, the mUV/VIS treatment proved to be significantly more effective than the placebo treatment.

The results gained were reasonably convincing, yet comparing Rhinolight with fexofenadine (falling in the group of antihistamines), a base medicine in the therapy of allergy rhinitis, is perhaps of higher significance in the widespread application of the intranasal Rhinolight phototherapy. (Kemény L, Koreck A, Csoma Zs, Boros-Gyevi M: Intranazális fototerápia és fexofenadine hatékonyságának összehasonlítása rhinitis allergicában. A Magyar Allergológiai és Klinikai Immunológiai Társaság XXXIII. Kongresszusa. May 18 – 21, 2005, Debrecen, Hungary, (abstract) Allergol Klin Immunol 8: 71, 2005; *Koreck A, Csoma Zs, Boros-Gyevi M, Kemény L: Comparison of the efficacy of intranasal phototherapy and fexofenadine hydrochloride for the treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis. (abstract), 5th Annual Meeting of the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS), May 12 – 16, 2005, Boston, Clin Immunol, Suppl. 1. S50, 2005.).

In an open comparing study, researchers compared the efficacy of 180 mg/day fexofenadine and 3 times/week intranasal Rhinolight phototherapy in ragweed-induced allergic rhinitis. During the two weeks of the study, clinical symptoms of patients were marked with a symptom score given by the patients and the physician. According to the results, fexofenadine did not reduce clinical symptoms of patients significantly, while a significant decrease in the symptoms of patients was observed by using Rhinolight phototherapy. Inefficiency of fexofenadine was presumably due to the fact that during the two-week treatment period the pollen level significantly went up compared to the initial level. The Rhinolight treatment effectively reduced the symptoms despite the rise of the pollen level.