Spaced Intranasal Corticosteroid Therapy: A Better Treatment Option in Allergic Rhinitis?

Intranasal corticosteroids are first-line therapy in the treatment of allergic rhinitis (AR) and are conventionally prescribed once daily as continuous therapy. The decreased consumption of drugs is proposed to have decreased side effects. The present study aimed at comparing the effect of INCS as a spaced therapy with the conventional continuous therapy. Case records of patients with Allergic Rhinitis, who were started on INCS were studied and improvement in symptom score was compared between continuous and spaced therapy groups. In total 182 patients with AR were studied, with 91 patients in each group. Among the total group, 57% were males, 54% were < 40 years of age, 54% had > 10 years of allergy history and 94% had no family history. There was significant improvement in mean Visual Analogue Score (VAS) for all patients in both groups (p = 0.001). However, the comparison of differences in VAS before and after therapy did not show significant difference for the two groups (p = 0.791). Our study suggests that the efficacy of INCS in controlling AR symptoms is observed to be similar with spaced therapy, as in continuous therapy. Spaced therapy may therefore be recommended for better patient compliance, lesser cost and avoidance of the side effects resulting in overall improvement of quality of life for allergic patients.