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Smoking does not affect quality of life after SLIT for allergic rhinitis

Smoking habits had no effect on quality-of-life outcomes among patients with allergic rhinitis who underwent sublingual immunotherapy, according to study results.

Michael Katotomichelakis MD, PhD, of the department of statistics at Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, and colleagues prospectively evaluated 163 patients with allergic rhinitis who underwent SLIT.

The investigators used the Zung Anxiety Scale, Zung Depression Scale, Beck Depression Inventory and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to assess psychology before and after SLIT. They used the SF-36 to assess general health.

All patients had improved total symptom scores and quality-of-life scores after SLIT. The researchers observed no significant difference among either group after adjusting for potential confounders such as demographics or disease characteristics.

Katotomichelakis and colleagues analyzed the effect of smoking habits on outcomes, controlling for other patient characteristics, and they observed no significant differences in score improvements between smokers and nonsmokers. Multivariate linear regression showed smokers’ pack-year history also had no significant effect on quality-of-life outcomes.

“Allergic rhinitis patients experience beneficial quality-of-life results after SLIT, irrespective to their smoking habits,” Katotomichelakis and colleagues wrote. “Both smokers and nonsmokers are significantly improved after treatment, and there is no contraindication to SLIT therapy related to smoking habits. These findings are of great clinical importance in every day clinical practice for case selection for SLIT.” – by Jeff Craven

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.