Analysis of the comorbidity of bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis by questionnaire in 10,009 patients.
BACKGROUND
Bronchial asthma (BA) and allergic rhinitis (AR) are thought to share a common pathogenesis. However, reports concerning the comorbidity of the two diseases in a large-scaled population are rare in Japan. In the present study, we performed an analysis on the two diseases using questionnaires that addressed the diagnosis, symptoms and period of occurrence in more than 10,000 patients with BA or AR.


METHODS
Patients with BA (adult: n = 2,781, childhood: n = 3,283) and AR (n = 3,945) were enrolled in the present study during the 3 months from August 1, 2006 to October 31, 2006.


RESULTS
Sixty one percent of the patients with adult BA showed symptoms of AR. Among them, 68% of the patients were diagnosed with AR. Among the patients with childhood BA, 68% showed AR symptoms and 60% were diagnosed with AR. On the other hand, 49% of AR patients showed BA symptoms and 35% of them were diagnosed with BA. The symptoms of both BA and AR in the BA and AR patients were frequent in two seasons, March and April, and September and October. In addition, BA and AR symptoms often co-occurred in the patients with BA and AR.


CONCLUSIONS
Comorbidity of BA and AR was high in both populations of BA and AR. The symptoms of both BA and AR co-occurred on both a daily and seasonal basis. These results suggested that BA and AR share a common immuno-pathogenesis in the airway and need to be treated as a single airway disease.
Yamauchi
Kohei
K
Third Department of Internal Medicine, Iwate Medical University School of Medicine, Iwate, Japan. kyamauch@iwate-med.ac.jp
Tamura
Gen
G
Akasaka
Toru
T
Chiba
Toshihiko
T
Honda
Kohei
K
Kishi
Motoji
M
Kobayashi
Hitoshi
H
Kuronuma
Tadayuki
T
Matsubara
Atsushi
A
Morikawa
Toshio
T
Ogawa
Hiroshi
H
Ohta
Nobuo
N
Okada
Masahiko
M
Sasaki
Masahiro
M
Saito
Junpei
J
Sano
Kunio
K
Satoh
Morito
M
Shibata
Yoko
Y
Takahashi
Yoshihiro
Y
Takanashi
Shingo
S
Inoue
Hiroshi
H
D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D006801:Humans; D012221:Rhinitis, Allergic, Perennial / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006255:Rhinitis, Allergic, Seasonal / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012621:Seasons; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires