B AC K G R O U N D Even though not a life-threatening disease, pollen allergic rhinitis (AR) has a remarkable social impact and cannot be left to its natural course. Pollens appear seasonally and are reflected in the symptoms of patients with AR living in temperate climates as in Turkey. Our aim was to determine prospectively the clinical characteristics of the patients diagnosed with pollen allergic persistent rhinitis and their risk factors for asthma in our allergy clinic. M ET H O D S A prospective study was conducted among 102 pollen AR patients with persistent symptoms in GATA Haydarpafla Hospital, Department of Allergy, between March 2005-September 2006. Participants were evaluated for allergic respiratory diseases, then were skin tested using the prick test method. A serum sample was analyzed for total IgE and peripheral blood eosinophil counts. R E S U LT S The mean age of the pat ients was 30.64±7.9 years and 69.6% were male. The most acc o mp a nying sens it iv i t y was against house dust mites (62.7%). Mon os e nsitiz at ion was found to be prot e ct ive factor for the dev el o pment of mod er at e - s ev ere dis e ase. The common acc o mpanying all e rgic dis e ase, asthma, was observed in 46 (45.1%) of the pat ients, 13 of whom had pos it ive fam i l y h i story of asthma. IgE levels and total eos in o phil cou n t s were signif icantly higher in the non-asth m atic patients. CO N C L U S I O N S Patients with AR were admitted to allergy clinics quite late, especially when persistent symptoms emerged. This might be due to AR not being considered as a serious disease. High IgE level and/or total eosinophil count were found to be protective factors for the development of asthma.