The Relationship Between Rhinitis And Asthma
Rhinitis and asthma are very common diseases that frequently coexist. According to the consensus document Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA ) published in 2001, both pathologies are correlated with high morbidity (level of involvement of the patient) and notable socioeconomic costs.
In particular, it is estimated that there are around 150 million people with asthma around the world. Rhinitis is not an understatement, since it is estimated that it affects up to 20% of the population in countries like the United States.
Due to the epidemiological and clinical importance of both conditions, understanding the relationship between rhinitis and asthma is essential. What should you know about it? Coming up next, we tell you.
The economic impact of rhinitis and asthma
Before delving fully into the correlation between both pathologies, we find it particularly interesting to shed some data that frame these diseases of the respiratory tract from a socioeconomic point of view. Some surprising data, collected by official sources, are the following:
- In Europe, each asthma patient costs an average of $1,900 a year in treatment and absences from work.
- In the United States, it is estimated that allergic rhinitis causes a total of 811,000 lost working days.
- This same country reports that the annual costs to combat asthma are more than 430 million dollars. It is not for less, since 8% of Americans (26 million people) present this pathology at any given time.
Not everything is reduced to economic values, since the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that this type of respiratory tract diseases claim more than 400,000 lives each year.
Most of these deaths occur in low-income countries, due to the lack of means for diagnosis and treatment. Next, we show you the relationship between rhinitis and asthma.
The relationship between rhinitis and asthma
We are not moving on speculative terrain when affirming that rhinitis and asthma are related, as various studies confirm this. Epidemiological explorations report the following results:
- Most asthma patients have rhinitis. Specifically, 75% of those with allergic asthma and more than 80% of those with non-allergic asthma.
- Patients with rhinitis may or may not have asthma. In cases of seasonal rhinitis (inflammation of the mucous lining of the nose due to allergies) asthma is present in 10 to 15% of cases. These values increase in cases of persistent severe rhinitis, as asthma appears with it up to 40% of the time.
We go further, since other bibliographic sources state that repeated allergic rhinitis is an important factor for the development of asthma. In children , this disease has been associated with twice the probability of suffering asthmatic processes at the age of 11 years.