Descriptive statistics
A total of 510 children with AR (352 male [69%]; mean age [± SD] 10.5 [±3.1] years) were recruited in this study. Of these, 117 (22.9%) had mild intermittent, 92 (18.0%) mild persistent, 63 (12.4%) moderate-severe intermittent, and 238 (46.7%) moderate-severe persistent AR. 205 children (40% of study population; 35 female and 180 male patients; 9.8 ± 2.9 years) had asthma. Table 1 summarizes the demographic and clinical characteristics of all participants, and among those with and without coexisting asthma. Persistent (52 vs. 73%, p<0.001) and moderate-severe AR (48 vs. 67%, p<0.001), coexisting conjunctivitis (71 vs. 80%, p=0.012) and grass pollen sensitization (81 vs. 90%, p=0.005) were more frequent in children without asthma, whereas house dust mite (26.8 % vs. 17.4 %, p=0.01) and mold sensitizations (13% vs. 5%, p=0.001) were more common (13.2 % vs. 4.9 %, p=0.001) in those with asthma.
All measures of lung function were significantly lower among children with asthma (Table 1).