The Effect of Rasasinex, A Combination of Black Seed and Olive Oil, in the Treatment of Allergic Rhinitis in Children

Background: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a high-prevalent disease. The prevalence of this disease in Iran is reported between 10% and 15%. Rasasinex, a nasal spray solution is an herbal solution that contains black seed extract (Nigella Sativa) and olive oil (Olea Oil). Due to the high prevalence of AR and excessive use of anti-histamine compounds, we aimed to assess the effect of Rasasinex, which is a combination of black seed and olive oil, in the treatment of childhood AR.Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted on records of children with mild and persistent AR who were divided into two groups of 50. In group 1, records of patients who received oral antihistamine treatment with Rasasinex were assessed. On the other hand, group 2 was treated routinely with only oral antihistamine treatment. The symptoms and signs were recorded in a checklist.Results: In this study, 37 (74%) patients in group 1 and 33 (66%) patients in group 2 were boys. The mean age in group 1 was 6.1 ±0.28 years and in group 2 was 6.8±0.34 years. Our results showed a significant difference in the improvement of AR symptoms in children treated with Rasasinex compared to children treated with antihistamine (p 0.0001). The mean duration of symptoms in the first group was 4.27 days and in the second group was 14.05 days. Therefore, in the first group, more children had symptom improvement on the same day of starting the drug, and the lack of improvement in group 1 was less than in the second group. Besides, most of the children taking Rasasinex had improvement in symptoms within less than three days of taking the drug.Conclusions: The use of Rasasinex for four weeks has been significantly effective in reducing and improving the AR symptoms in children so most of the patients reported improvement of symptoms up to three days. Therefore, it seems that it can be used in these patients.