Spirometric evaluation in patients with allergic rhinitis- emphasising need of early diagnosis: a tertiary care experience from Central India

Abstract

Background: Allergic rhinitis is predecessor of Bronchial asthma in most of the cases. Present study was aimed to understand the prevalence of the impaired spirometric changes in patients with allergic rhinitis and to find association with various demographic factors, sputum eosinophilia and eosinophil count in the blood with the impaired Spirometry of these patients.Methods: Authors conducted a cross sectional study among the patients of allergic rhinitis presented to us in our outpatient department from January 2016 to July 2017. The patient’s with allergic rhinitis either newly diagnosed or already on treatment were included in the study. Standard guidelines as given by ARIA were followed in defining a case of allergic rhinitis. The detailed clinical history was taken, and examination was performed of all the patients and documented. Spirometric evaluation was done using the standard guidelines by a desktop based Spirometry.Results: The mean age of the study subjects was 30.22±13.13 years with male: female ratio of 0.96. The mean duration of the allergic rhinitis in our study was 3.86±3.34years. The most common complaint was itching sensation of nose followed by paroxysmal sneezing and watering of eyes. About 22.15% of the study subjects have impaired Spirometry. Upon bronchodilator therapy 30% of the study subjects had significant reversibility in FEV1.Conclusions: About ¼ of present study subjects had impaired Spirometry and about 30% of them had reversibility after bronchodilator therapy. Authors also found that the higher age study subjects had significantly higher impaired Spirometry; persistent allergic rhinitis patients had higher impairment of Spirometry and the patients with higher the sputum eosinophilia had higher impairment in Spirometry.