Journal Reviews
Does endoscopic sinus surgery for chronic rhinosinusitis improve COPD?
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) can be associated with asthma, with a reported frequency of asthma in patients with CRS of up to 44%. COPD is another lung condition that can be associated with CRS. This longitudinal study reviewed the nasal and...
A new era in the treatment of recalcitrant nasal polyps?
Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) can be difficult to treat effectively in patients with aggressive or recalcitrant disease. Omalizumab (Xolair) is a monoclonal anti-IgE antibody with proven benefits for patients with moderate/severe asthma and CRSwNP, but this study looks...
Can we predict how much benefit patients will get from ESS with a novel monoclonal antibody
Mepolizumab (Nucala) is a humanised IgG1 monoclonal antibody that acts as an IL-5 antagonist. It has been shown to be highly effective in treating severe asthma. It is hypothesised that it will be effective for patients with recalcitrant CRSwNP. This...
One airway, one disease - not for everyone!
While 85% of asthmatic patients have rhinitis, only 20-30% with rhinitis have asthma. Together with atopic dermatitis (AD), rhinitis and asthma form a triad that tend to co-exist in patients (multimorbidity). This co-existence raises the possibility of genetic mechanism. Authors...
The search for the holy grail of rhinosinusitis: another step towards phenotyping in CRS wNP?
For many years, scientists and clinicians have been trying to understand the infinite variability within the term ‘rhinosinusitis’ using radiology, basic science, epidemiology and then using their insights to solve the riddle of management: how to explain why some patients...
Puberty and rhinitis
While asthma and rhinitis are more common in boys compared to girls in childhood, whether this trend persists after puberty or not is not yet clear. Authors inspected the European Commission funded MeDALL (Mechanisms of the Development of ALLergy) to...
Allergen immunotherapy and allergic rhinitis – EAACI guideline 2017
Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a common chronic childhood disease with considerable social burden and impact on quality of life, frequently necessitating treatment with various combinations of antihistamines and corticosteroids. The allergen immunotherapy (AIT), sometimes known as desensitisation therapy, can modify...
Poor allergic rhinitis control increases the overall costs
Allergic rhinitis and asthma are common and can have significant effects on quality of life. However, not many studies have focused on the economic effects. The authors of this study performed a large-scale (over 60,000 patients) observational study to analyse...
Sinus surgery effects on asthma patients
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and asthma are related. The authors identified a gap in the literature and designed this study with a relatively large sample size of 86 patients. They included patients with comorbid asthma and CRS with or without polyps...