Relation of systemic comorbidities in asthma with disease: control, severity and phenotype

Abstract

Asthma is a heterogeneous and chronic inflamatory disease that can accompany many comorbidities during the course. It is thought that different comorbidities are seen in different phenotypes of asthma. Our aim is to establish the relationship between systemic comorbidities seen in asthmatic patients and asthma control, severity and phenotypes. Patients who were followed up with asthma diagnosis in Polyclinics of Ankara University Faculty of Medicine Department of Immunology and Allergy Diseases were questioned about demographic characteristics. Their control status and disease severity were determined. They were classified whether r atopic, eosinophilic or obese. Systemic comorbidities were questioned and Charlson comorbidity indices (CCI) were calculated. The difference between the groups in the terms of CCI was evaluated. Two hundred and twenty-nine patients (29E/200K, 12.7%/87.3%) with a mean age of 51.25 ± 12.02 were included in the study. CCI was significantly higher in patients without asthma control than in those with partial control and well control (CCI: 2.22, 1.69, 1.50, respectively) (p= 0.03). There was also a linear correlation between asthma severity and CCI (CC: 0.22, p= 0.001). Allergic comorbidities were more frequent in the eosinophilic phenotype (p= 0.01) (OR: 2.20, 95% CI: 1.2-3.8) but did not increase the likelihood of accompanying systemic comorbidity (OR: 1.05, 95% CI: 0.8-1.2) (p> 0.05). The likelihood of systemic comorbidity, especially HT, coroner artery diseases, depression, was higher in nonatopics than in atopic patients (OR: 2.039 95% CI: 1.04.11) (p= 0.03). Obesity was found to be a risk factor for systemic comorbidities (OR: 1.36 %95 C1: 1.09-1.84) (p= 0.04). Severe, uncontrolled, obese or nonatopic asthma patients should be examined for systemic comorbidities. There is a need for further study to assess the relationship between treatment of established comorbidities and asthma course.