title: Treatment of allergic rhinitis is associated with improved attention performance in children: the Allergic Rhinitis Cohort Study for Kids (ARCO-Kids).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It has been well known that pediatric allergic rhinitis was associated with poor performance at school due to attention deficit. However, there were no cohort studies for the effect of treatment of allergic rhinitis on attention performance in pediatric population. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether attention performance was improved after treatment in children with allergic rhinitis.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this ARCO-Kids (Allergic Rhinitis Cohort Study for Kids), consecutive pediatric patients with rhinitis symptoms underwent a skin prick test and computerized comprehensive attention test. According to the skin prick test results, the children were diagnosed as allergic rhinitis or non- allergic rhinitis. All of the patients were regularly followed up and treated with oral medication or intranasal corticosteroid sprays. The comprehensive attention tests consisted of sustained and divided attention tasks. Each of the tasks was assessed by the attention score which was calculated by the number of omission and commission errors. The comprehension attention test was repeated after 1 year.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 797 children with allergic rhinitis and 239 children with non-allergic rhinitis were included. Initially, the attention scores of omission and commission errors on divided attention task were significantly lower in children with allergic rhinitis than in children with non-allergic rhinitis. After 1 year of treatment, children with allergic rhinitis showed improvement in attention: commission error of sustained (95.6±17.0 vs 97.0±16.6) and divided attention task (99.1±15.8 vs 91.8±23.5). Meanwhile, there was no significant difference of attention scores in children with non-allergic rhinitis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study showed that management of allergic rhinitis might be associated with improvement of attention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Kyu
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Republic of Korea; Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Chae Seo
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Rhee
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Doo Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Bin
authors.initials: TB
authors.lastname: Won
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Young
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jeong-Whun
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001288:Attention; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D065631:Rhinitis, Allergic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*
chemical_list: D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones