Asthma outcomes after endoscopic sinus surgery in aspirin-tolerant versus aspirin-induced asthmatic patients

BACKGROUND: Certain diseases affect both upper and lower airways. Aspirin-induced asthma (AIA) is a clinical entity characterized by asthma, nasal polyposis, and aspirin intolerance. To understand the response of the lower airway to surgical treatment of the sinuses, we examined asthma outcomes in AIA compared with a second group of aspirin-tolerant asthmatic (ATA) patients to establish if there were any differences between the two groups after endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). METHODS: A retrospective record review was performed of 91 asthmatic subjects with chronic rhinosinusitis. Forty-one subjects had AIA and 50 subjects had ATA. Subjective and objective asthma outcome parameters were used to compare between the two groups at three time points: immediately before ESS and 6 and 12 months after ESS. RESULTS: Preoperatively, AIA patients had significantly higher asthma severity (p<0.0001) and lower forced expiratory volume in 1 second values (p=0.04). At 12 months after ESS, a statistically significant difference between the two groups with better results in AIA patients was seen in asthma severity improvement (p=0.010) and in the decrease of ICS doses (p<0.0001), without significant differences between the two groups in other asthma outcome parameters. CONCLUSION: AIA patients usually present with more severe asthma. The asthmatic complaints of AIA and ATA patients continue to improve significantly over 6 and 12 month after ESS. Although ESS helped both groups of patients, AIA had statistically significant better results compared with ATA patients in asthma severity scores and decreased need for ICS.