TABLE 4.
Longitudinal changes in clinical outcomes in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) patients when stratified according to the presence or absence of sensitisation to moulds/Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins (SEs) (≥0.10 UA/mL)
| Moulds/SEs+ (n=15) | Moulds/SEs− (n=33) | p-value¶ | |||||
| Before | 12 months after | p-value# | Before | 12 months after | p-value# | ||
| Systemic biomarkers | |||||||
| Blood eosinophil count per µL | 449 (262, 653) | 341 (203, 487) | 0.08 | 178 (85, 310) | 177 (80, 317) | 0.42 | 0.10 |
| Serum periostin ng·mL−1 | 112 (93, 159) | 102 (64, 125) | 0.36 | 80 (72, 100) | 86 (69, 111) | 0.80 | 0.16 |
| Sensitisation to moulds | 11 (73) | 10 (67) | 0 (0) | 0 (0) | |||
| Sensitisation to SEs | 11 (73) | 7 (47) | 0 (0) | 6 (18) | |||
| Upper airway markers | |||||||
| Nasal polyps recurrence, presence, n (%)+ | 4 (27) | 3 (9) | 0.18 | ||||
| Lund–Mackay scores | 14 (10, 15) | 9 (6,13) | 0.004 | 11 (7, 16) | 5 (2, 11) | <0.0001 | 0.81 |
| SNOT-22 scores | 31 (22, 51) | 24 (5, 32) | 0.03 | 20 (12, 33) | 10 (5, 20) | 0.0003 | 0.80 |
| Open Essence scores | 4 (0, 8) | 6 (0, 9) | 0.06 | 5 (0, 8) | 6 (4, 8) | 0.08 | 0.67 |
| Lower airway markers | |||||||
| New asthma onset, presence§ | 1 (25) | 6 (24) | >0.99 | ||||
| AQLQ pointsƒ | 5.9 (4.9, 6.7) | 6.4 (6.0, 6.7) | 0.02 | 5.6 (5.5, 6.57) | 6.2 (6.1, 7) | 0.03 | 0.82 |
| Sputum eosinophils %## | 3.3 (0.9, 27.2) | 3.4 (0.5, 12.1) | 0.76 | 0 (0, 2.0) | 1.0 (0, 4.5) | 0.09 | 0.33 |
| Sputum periostin ng·mL−1## | 27.2 (14, 47.8) | 8.1 (1.7, 20.8) | 0.02 | 9.8 (2.3, 15.6) | 3.3 (1.8, 9.0) | 0.004 | 0.24 |
| FeNO ppb¶¶ | 50.4 (33.6, 73.8) | 32.7 (24.6, 54.6) | 0.56 | 26.4 (17.6, 38.0) | 26.3 (15.4, 46.0) | 0.86 | 0.34 |
Data are presented as median (25th percentile, 75th percentile) or n (%), unless otherwise stated. Moulds: Alternaria and Aspergillus; SEs: Staphylococcus enterotoxins A and B; SNOT-22: Sinonasal Outcome Test-22; AQLQ: Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire; FeNO: fractional nitric oxide. #: Analysed by Wilcoxon single rank test; ¶: Analysed by Wilcoxon rank-sum test or Fischer's exact test; +: n=34 (moulds/SEs+/–: 12/22; §: n=30 (moulds/SEs+/–: 5/25); ƒ: n=18 (moulds/SEs +/–: 10/8; ##: n=39 (moulds/SEs +/–: 13/26); ¶¶: n=47 (moulds/SEs +/–: 14/33).