Artemisia Allergy Research in China

Artemisia is the most important outdoor allergen throughout China. It can cause allergic rhinitis, asthma, or both of them. Since it was verified as an allergenic pollen in 1960, it was identified two times in the Chinese National Pollen Survey (1984, 2009). The first oral immunotherapy double-blinded trial for Artemisia pollen asthma research was conducted in China in 1989 and published in 1990. 40 years since that study, there have been many published research reports on Chinese Artemisia allergy. This review summarizes the information regarding the discovery of Artemisia as an allergenic pollen, pollen account, epidemiology, allergen components, immunological changes in hay fever patients, natural course from rhinitis to asthma, diagnosis, and immunotherapies in China.