MedWire News: Asthma patients who also suffer from the hayfever-like condition rhinitis tend to experience more severe respiratory symptoms than other asthma patients, study results confirm.

Although the impact of rhinitis on asthma is largely recognised by doctors, studies of the association have not produced conclusive results, explain Dr Eduardo Ponte and colleagues from Universidade Federal da Bahia in Brazil.

To investigate further, the team studied 557 patients with severe asthma who were aged between 38 and 59 years.

Over the course of the 1-year study, all the patients completed questionnaires on their asthma symptoms and quality of life. They were also assessed for the presence and severity of rhinitis, the number of emergency hospital visits they made over the study period and the number of respiratory medications they used.

They researchers found that, in total, 54% of the participants had mild rhinitis, 31% had moderate/severe rhinitis and 15% did not have the condition.

Analysis revealed that patients with moderate/severe rhinitis were 3.8 times more likely to seek emergency hospital treatment over the course of the study and more than 12 times more likely to have uncontrolled asthma than those without rhinitis.

The team also found that the severity of rhinitis was directly related to the severity of asthma, and that patients with both rhinitis and asthma tended to get less benefit from treatment than those with asthma alone.

Furthermore, patients with both rhinitis and asthma reported a poorer overall quality of life than those with asthma alone.

Dr Ponte and team conclude: "In... patients with severe asthma, moderate/severe rhinitis is associated with increased asthma severity and reduced response to treatment."

However, they add: "Although the interrelationship between asthma and rhinitis is largely demonstrated [in this study], the impact of rhinitis treatment on asthma is still a matter of investigation."

The research is published in the journal Allergy.