Dr Basil Kahwash on the Comorbidity With the Greatest Impact on Asthma Outcomes

Some atopic diseases affect asthma outcomes more than others, according to Basil Kahwash, MD, an assistant professor of medicine on the clinical educator track in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Transcript

Is it possible to pick one comorbidity that has the greatest impact on asthma outcomes?

Certainly possible—it's not easy, because they're all pretty impactful when it comes to asthma outcomes. But I would say, if I had to pick one that makes the largest impact, at least at the population level, it's going to be allergic rhinitis, even though we often think of allergic rhinitis, as a pretty simple disease, pretty simple comorbidity. A lot of people have it. It's just a runny nose at the end of the day. As a contributor to asthma outcomes, it's so widespread and so common that I would say that not enough people are controlling their allergic rhinitis, if they have comorbid asthma. And really, if we can accomplish that at a population level, that's where you're going to see the biggest impact on asthma outcomes. It coexists with so many cases of asthma, that if you're treating allergic rhinitis well, and really reinforcing to asthma patients that they need to be treating their allergic rhinitis, among all of the millions of people who have both asthma and allergic rhinitis, you're going to see better outcomes.