1887
Volume 2022 Number 2
  • ISSN: 0253-8253
  • EISSN: 2227-0426

Abstract

Background: Allergic rhinitis and asthma exacerbation are strongly linked to respiratory viral and bacterial infections. COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the risk of infection and the severity of COVID-19 infection in patients with asthma and allergic rhinitis. However, increasing evidence suggests that atopic disease protects against severe COVID-19 illness owing to the underlying type 2 inflammatory process. Many studies have reported the impact of asthma on COVID-19 disease; however, data on allergic rhinitis are scarce. In this study, we aimed to investigate the severity and outcome of COVID-19 disease in adult patients with allergic rhinitis in Qatar during the first pandemic wave.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of asthma and/or allergic rhinitis who had a positive COVID-19 RT-PCR between February 01, 2020, and December 01, 2020. Parameters evaluated included the WHO classification of COVID-19 disease severity as mild, moderate, severe, and critical; COVID-19 disease outcome; and mortality. Patients with allergic rhinitis were defined as those with typical allergic rhinitis symptoms and positive skin prick test or specific IgE to perennial or seasonal inhaled allergens. Only data about patients with allergic rhinitis has been presented in this report.

Results: We screened 97 EMR Cerner records of patients who had the diagnosis code for allergic rhinitis. Nine patients met the inclusion criteria of allergic rhinitis diagnosis; the remaining either had no allergy testing or had negative allergy tests. Seven (77.7%) patients had mild COVID-19, whereas only one (11.1%) patient each had moderate and severe disease. The length of hospital stays for 6 patients ranged from 5–13 days, and the remaining 3 patients were quarantined at home. No reports of critical cases or death were identified. All the patients recovered from COVID-19 with a favorable outcome.

Conclusion: This preliminary data showed that most patients with allergic rhinitis had mild COVID-19 disease. Furthermore, all of them recovered well, similar to the available data from previous studies. A limitation of this study is the small population size.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5339/qmj.2022.fqac.8
2022-04-01
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/qmj/2022/2/qmj.2022.fqac.8.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5339/qmj.2022.fqac.8&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Papadopoulos NG, Christodoulou I, Rohde G, Agache I, Almqvist C, et al. Viruses and bacteria in acute asthma exacerbations–a GA2 LEN-DARE systematic review. Allergy. 2011 Apr; 66:(4):458–68. doi: 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2010.02505.x..
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Riggioni C, Comberiati P, Giovannini M, Agache I, Akdis M, Alves-Correia M, et al. A compendium answering 150 questions on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. Allergy. 2020 Oct; 75:(10):2503–41.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Gao Y, Agache I, Akdis M, Nadeau K, Klimek L, Jutel M, et al. The effect of allergy and asthma as a comorbidity on the susceptibility and outcomes of COVID-19. Int Immunol. 2021 Nov 12;dxab107.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.5339/qmj.2022.fqac.8
Loading
/content/journals/10.5339/qmj.2022.fqac.8
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error