[A preliminary study on etiology of atrophic rhinitis in Zunyi]

200 cases (households with atrophic rhinitis (AR) diagnosed from outpatients and mobile medical team as the AR group were studied. Another 200 cases (households) served as the control group, who were residents of countryside and members of a factory in Zunyi, and they have lived in Zunyi for more than 20 years. The subjects between the two groups were similar in age and sex. Each of these two groups was further divided into two groups, the opentype stove group (100 cases) and the closetype stove group (100 cases). The heritability (h2, 59.4 +/- 0.032%) was estimated by using the method of Falconer liability threshold. The concentration of SO2 in living environment was monitored with Parafuchsin colorimetry. The daily average SO2 concentrations have been drawn for comparison. The result showed that the SO2 concentration of living environment in AR group was significantly higher than that in control group (P < 0.01). We believe that the contraction and development of AR were determined by the combination of inheritance with environment. This fact suggests that AR may be transmitted in a multigenic and multifacterial modes.