Abstract

BACKGROUND:
The aim was to study the association between allergic multimorbidity and adult-onset asthma considering the number of allergic diseases and the age effect.

METHODS:
We used population-based data from Finnish national registers including 1205 adults over 30 years of age with recently diagnosed asthma (age range: 30-93), matched for gender, age, and living region with one or two controls (n=2050). Allergic rhinitis (AR), allergic conjunctivitis (AC) and allergic dermatitis (AD), was defined from self-completed questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression adjusted on potential confounders (smoking, growing in countryside, childhood hospitalized infection/pneumonia, parental asthma/allergy, parental smoking, education level, professional training, number of siblings, and birth order) was applied to estimate the asthma risk associated with allergic multimorbidity.

RESULTS:
1118 cases with asthma and 1772 matched controls were included [mean (sd, min-max) 53 (11, 31-71) years, 37% men)]. AR, AC or AD were reported by 50.2%, 39.6%, 33.8%, respectively among subjects with asthma and 26.1%, 20.0%, 23.5%, among controls. Compared to non-atopics, adult-onset asthma increased with the number of allergic diseases; adjusted OR for asthma [CI95%] associated with 1, 2, and 3 allergic diseases were 1.95 [1.52-2.49], 2.87 [2.19-3.77], and 4.26 [3.07-5.90], respectively. The association between adult-onset asthma and =1 allergic multimorbidity decreased with increasing age (3.52 [2.51-4.94], 2.44 [1.74-3.42] and 1.68 [1.04-2.71]) in subjects < 50 years, 50-62 years and >62 years, respectively (p for age*=1 allergic multimorbidity interaction, .002).

CONCLUSIONS:
Adult-onset asthma was positively associated with the number of allergic diseases and this association decreases with age

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