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Medical Science International Publishing, Medical Science Monitor, (20), p. 2151-2156

DOI: 10.12659/msm.891206

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A Survey of Clinical Features of Allergic Rhinitis in Adults

Journal article published in 2014 by R. de Palma, G. del Pozzo, M. Sugamiele, G. Taddeo, M. Teresa Ventura, S. Testi, E. Tombetti, C. Tosoni, M. Triggiani, S. Tripodi, E. Vallerani, A. Vargiu, A. Varricchio, M. Zambito, M. Zanforlin and other authors.
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Background: Allergic rhinitis (AR) has high prevalence and substantial socio-economic burden. Material/Methods: The study included 35 Italian Centers recruiting an overall number of 3383 adult patients with rhinitis (48% males, 52% females, mean age 29.1, range 18–45 years). For each patient, the attending physician had to fill in a standardized questionnaire, covering, in particular, some issues such as the ARIA classification of allergic rhinitis (AR), the results of skin prick test (SPT), the kind of treatment, the response to treatment, and the sat-isfaction with treatment. Results: Out of the 3383 patients with rhinitis, 2788 (82.4%) had AR: 311 (11.5%) had a mild intermittent, 229 (8.8%) a mild persistent, 636 (23.5%) a moderate-severe intermittent, and 1518 (56.1%) a moderate-severe persistent form. The most frequently used drugs were oral antihistamines (77.1%) and topical corticosteroids (60.8%). The response to treatment was judged as excellent in 12.2%, good in 41.3%, fair in 31.2%, poor in 14.5%, and very bad in 0.8% of subjects. The rate of treatment dissatisfaction was significantly higher in patients with moderate-to-severe AR than in patients with mild AR (p<0.0001). Indication to allergen immunotherapy (AIT) was significantly more frequent (p<0.01) in patients with severe AR than with mild AR. Conclusions: These findings confirm the appropriateness of ARIA guidelines in classifying the AR patients and the associ-ation of severe symptoms with unsuccessful drug treatment. The optimal targeting of patients to be treated with AIT needs to be reassessed. 2151 Indexed in: [Current Contents/Clinical Medicine] [SCI Expanded] [ISI Alerting System] [ISI Journals Master List] [Index Medicus/MEDLINE] [EMBASE/Excerpta Medica] [Chemical Abstracts/CAS] [Index Copernicus] PUBLIC HEALTH This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License Background