Evaluation of quality of life of patients with pollen allergy before and after sublingual immunotherapy course

Abstract

In Ukraine, there are over 1.5 thousand types of weeds, which may provoke the development of allergic reactions. Based on our observation, most commonly sensitization to Artemisia and less often to Ambrosia is recorded in patients of Lviv region. The presence of clinical symptoms significantly deteriorates life quality of patients with pollen allergy and requires conduction of proper allergy immunotherapy. Aim. To analyze QOL of patients with allergy to weed pollen before and after conduction of sublingual immunotherapy based on a specialized questionnaire MiniRQLQ. Materials and methods. Totally, 485 individuals, 24.0 ± 4.5 years old were examined. Clinical diagnosis of AR was made according to ARIA criteria (2014). SPT to standard inhaled allergens (Diater-Laboratories, Spain), total serum and specific immunoglobulins IgE, IFA, type-specific components of allergens, immunofluorescent method immunoCAP ("Phadia AB", Sweden) were determined. Analysis of life quality was performed based on questionnaire MiniMRQLQ. Results. Among patients of Lviv region with pollen allergy, the most commonly detected positive SPT were to Artemisia-in 62.3 %, less to Ambrosia-13.9 % of individuals, combined sensitization-23.8 % of patients. Among them, genuine allergy to Artemisia was confirmed in 88.1 %, to Ambrosia-88.2 % of individuals, co-sensitization-in 21 patients. According to the results of molecular investigations, SLIT was performed for 69.6 % of patients (the 1 st group), 30.4 % of individuals were treated symptomatically (the 2 nd group). Based on questionnaire MiniRQLQ, it was revealed that QOL indices in patients with pollen allergy, who underwent SLIT, were reliably lower after the first and the second years of treatment compared to the indices before SLIT. Reliable changes were not detected in patients of the second group. Conclusions. Improvement of QOL indices after a course of SLIT indicated the high efficacy of this treatment method in patients with pollen allergy.