Effectiveness and persistence of subcutaneous allergen immunotherapy (SCIT) in severe allergic rhinitis patients: Do the patients like injectable treatment?

Background: Allergic rhinitis is frequent chronic disease which worsened the quality of life of the patients. It is known that persistence and compliance to the treatment is very low in chronic diseases. Subcutaneous allergen specific immunotherapy (SCIT) is very effective treatment for moderate and severe allergic rhinitis. However long duration, difficulties on administration and cost of this treatment may negatively affect the adherence of patients. Our objective was to evaluate the effectiveness and adherence to the SCIT in our severe allerjic rhintis patients.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 135 patients who were administered SCIT for 1 or more years in our Immunology and Allergy outpatient clinic. Demographic data, allergic status, monthly incomes, travel costs, pretreatment and post treatment symptom scores and visual analogue scores (V.A.S) and treatment persistence were noted. Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Wilcoxon rank tests were used for statistically analyses.

Results:   In this retrospectively-cohort designed study, patients’ mean age was 31.5±11.0 years (14-63 years), and female/male was 84/51. All of the patients have insurance. There was statistically significant improvement of symptom scores and VAS (p<0.000). 15 (11.1%) patients were noncompliant to the SCIT. Total compliance was 88.9%.

Conclusions: We concluded that, even though there was small number of the patients, SCIT was very effective treatment for allergic rhinitis, and patient compliance were very high in this study. We speculate that these results may be related with patients like injectable treatment and SCIT is administered directly observational.