[The importance of upper respiratory tract infections in determining chronic pulmonary diseases]

Being a general report, the summary is made by the title itself. The author presents the structural and functional interdependence of the superior and inferior respiratory ways within the nonspecific chronic diseases. After a short history with regards to the interest shown by clinicians, in time, towards the pathogenic link between the superior and inferior respiratory ways, physiopathology is brought up to date, in a synthetic form--the immunologic processes concerned in the chronic rhino-sinusal-bronchial affections of an infectious and allergic kind, the existent clinical and therapeutic interdependence, the data in the literature being presented through the author's experience.