SAN ANTONIO — Consider routine allergy testing for patients with asthma and/or allergic rhinitis, Helen Smith, M.B., advised at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.
“There's no doubt that rhinitis is one of those things that goes unnoticed and unattended to, and one could argue that identifying the allergic causes of it could reduce repeat consultations about poorly managed chronic asthma,” she told this newspaper.
Her study of 127 such patients found an 83% allergy rate after skin prick testing—information which resulted in significant changes in patient habits and medications, said Dr. Smith, professor of primary care at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (England).
“We have some follow-up data a few months after the allergy diagnosis, and there have been changes in lifestyle in 35% of patients and changes in medication in 15%,” she said.
The study tested patients for the five most common aeroallergens in England. It identified grass allergy in 55% of patients, pollen allergies in 55%, tree pollen allergy in 41%, cat allergy in 38%, and dog allergy in 15%.
The lifestyle changes that patients adopted after diagnosis were largely avoidance measures such as no longer cutting the grass, she said. And medication changes were mostly additions of medications, such as antihistamines, to the existing asthma/rhinitis regimens.
“These are very much proxy markers, suggesting that there was this unmet ability to improve patient care,” she said. A more accurate assessment of the value of allergy testing is currently being evaluated in another ongoing randomized, controlled trial of skin prick test and allergy assessment, which is following patients for 12 months to track changes in quality of life and symptom control.