The impact of asthma and aspirin sensitivity on quality of life of patients with nasal polyposis

Abstract

Nasal polyposis is not a life-threatening disease but may have a great impact on patient's quality of life. To investigate the impact of nasal polyps on quality of life compared with the Spanish general population using the SF-36 questionnaire; and to evaluate the impact of asthma and aspirin sensitivity on quality of life in patients with nasal polyposis. We included 130 patients with nasal polyposis and evaluated nasal symptom, CT scan, polyp size, and quality of life. In comparison with the Spanish general population, patients with nasal polyposis had worse scores on all SF-36 domains except for physical functioning. Asthmatic patients with nasal polyposis had worse quality of life than nonasthmatic patients on role physical, body pain, and vitality (p < 0.05). The authors found no significant differences on quality of life, nasal symptoms, polyp size, and CT scan scores between patients with aspirin-tolerant and aspirin-sensitive asthma. These results suggest that nasal polyposis has a considerable impact on quality of life. Moreover, asthma but not aspirin sensitivity has an additional negative impact on the quality of life of patients with nasal polyposis.