Prescribing in patients with allergic rhinitis

Last month, the research round-up provided you with an overview of articles looking at prescribing in diabetes. This month, we have an overview of different areas of prescribing in allergic rhinitis.

The first article looks at the efficacy and safety of a combination nasal spray in comparison to other more tried and tested pharmacotherapy treatments. In the second article, we review the classification of pharmacotherapy in allergic rhinitis. Finally, in our third article we examine a study on the effects of systemic steroid treatment.

With allergy season upon us and set to continue over summer, this topical review of recent literature may be of help to those prescribing in this common minor ailment area.

This article, published in the journal Allergo Journal International, used a literature review methodology to examine the available evidence in many online databases around treatment options for allergic rhinitis. Robust search methodology was employed and yielded 14 papers selected for inclusion in the review. The team acknowledged that pharmacotherapy is the mainstay of treatment and aimed to search around different drug modalities in allergic rhinitis. The search period looked for these across databases and included human studies published up to August 2023. The review found that the main drugs used in the management of allergic rhinitis include intranasal corticosteroids, nasal and oral antihistamines, leukotriene antagonists, intranasal cromogliclic acid preparations, intranasal and oral vasoconstrictors and nasal rinses.