Rupatadine improves nasal symptoms,quality of life (ESPRINT-15) and severity in a subanalysis of a cohort of Spanish allergic rhinitis patients

Background: according to current guidelines,new second-generation oral h1-antihistamines,as well as intranasal corticosteroids (icss),are recommended for the treatment of allergic rhinitis (ar) in adults and children. objective: to assess changes in ar severity,in addition to nasal symptoms and health-related quality of life (hrqol),after 4 weeks of treatment with rupatadine in a cohort of ar patients. methods: a subanalysis of a longitudinal,observational,prospective,multicenter spanish study was carried out in spring-summer 2007. enrolled patients had a clinical diagnosis of ar of at least 2 years' evolution,a total nasal symptom score (tnss) of at least 5,and had not received antihistamines in the previous week or icss in the previous 2 weeks. hrqol (esprint-15 questionnaire),disease severity (using both the original and modifi ed allergic rhinitis and its impact on asthma [aria] classifi cations),and nasal symptoms (tnss) were measured at baseline and after 4 weeks of rupatadine treatment. results: data from a cohort of 360 patients treated with rupatadine were analyzed (57.2% women,42.5% with intermittent ar,36.4% with asthma,and 61.7% with conjunctivitis). after 4 weeks of treatment,the patients showed a signifi cantly lower mean (sd) tnss (8.2 [1.9] vs 3.1 [2.1],p<.001),a signifi cant improvement in hrqol (3.0 [1.2] vs 1.0 [0.9],p<.001) and signifi cantly reduced ar severity (p<.0001). conclusions: in addition to an improvement in nasal symptoms and hrqol,rupatadine reduced ar severity after 4 weeks of treatment. © 2011 esmon publicidad.