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. 2021 Feb 8;21(1):53.
doi: 10.1186/s12890-020-01364-8.

Gastritis and gastroesophageal reflux disease are strongly associated with non-allergic nasal disorders

Eliana Finocchio  1 , Francesca Locatelli  1 , Francesca Sanna  1 , Roberta Vesentini  1 , Pierpaolo Marchetti  1 , Gianluca Spiteri  2 , Leonardo Antonicelli  3 , Salvatore Battaglia  4 , Roberto Bono  5 , Angelo Guido Corsico  6 , Marcello Ferrari  7 , Nicola Murgia  8 , Pietro Pirina  9 , Mario Olivieri  2 , Giuseppe Verlato  10
Affiliations

Gastritis and gastroesophageal reflux disease are strongly associated with non-allergic nasal disorders

Eliana Finocchio et al. BMC Pulm Med. .

Abstract

Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) has been reported to be significantly associated with chronic rhinosinusitis, but the strength of the association is still debated.

Aims: To evaluate the strength of the association between gastritis/GERD and non-allergic rhinitis (NAR)/allergic rhinitis (AR)/sinusitis.

Methods: We investigated 2887 subjects aged 20-84 years, who underwent a clinical visit in seven Italian centres (Ancona, Palermo, Pavia, Terni, Sassari, Torino, Verona) within the study on Gene Environment Interactions in Respiratory Diseases, a population-based multicase-control study between 2008 and 2014. Subjects were asked if they had doctor-diagnosed "gastritis or stomach ulcer (confirmed by gastroscopy)" or "gastroesophageal reflux disease, hiatal hernia or esophagitis". The association between NAR/AR/sinusitis and either gastritis or GERD was evaluated through relative risk ratios (RRR) by multinomial logistic regression.

Results: The prevalence of gastritis/GERD increased from subjects without nasal disturbances (22.8% = 323/1414) to subjects with AR (25.8% = 152/590) and further to subjects with NAR (36.7% = 69/188) or sinusitis (39.9% = 276/691). When adjusting for centre, sex, age, education level, BMI, smoking habits and alcohol intake, the combination of gastritis and GERD was associated with a four-fold increase in the risk of NAR (RRR = 3.80, 95% CI 2.56-5.62) and sinusitis (RRR = 3.70, 2.62-5.23) with respect to controls, and with a much smaller increase in the risk of AR (RRR = 1.79, 1.37-2.35)..

Conclusion: The study confirmed the association between gastritis/GERD and nasal disturbances, which is stronger for NAR and sinusitis than for AR.

Keywords: Allergic rhinitis; Gastritits; Gastroesophageal reflux disease; Non-allergic rhinitis; Sinusitis.

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Conflict of interest statement

G. Verlato is Section Editor of BMC Pulmonary Medicine, for the Section Epidemiology and Public Health. G. Verlato received financial support from BioMed Central to participate in the 2014 and 2015 Congresses of the European Respiratory Society. All remaining authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Association between nasal disorders and gastritis/gastroesophageal reflux. Relative Risk Ratios (RRR) were estimated by a multinomial regression model, adjusting for sex, age, education level, BMI, smoking habits, alcohol intake. Columns are RRRs, bars are 95% confidence inervals
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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