LAUSR

BACKGROUND Allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma are the most common inflammatory diseases of the airways. The relationship between asthma and AR is widely and clinically recognised. The concept "one airway, one disease" has been gradually accepted. However, in China, we could not find any systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of AR with asthma and asthma with AR. OBJECTIVE The aim of this research was to carry out a meta-analysis on the results of all conducted studies to present valid information about the co-occurrence rate of AR with asthma and asthma with AR in China. METHODS Pubmed/Medline, Science, Springer, Elsevier, Embase, Wanfang data, VIP, CBM, and CNKI were searched systemically and data were extracted from eligible studies by two independent reviewers. Meta-analysis, study quality assessment, and publication bias assessments were all done using Stata 12.1 software. RESULTS The results of this meta-analysis showed that pooled prevalence estimates of AR with asthma ranged from 6.69% to 14.35%, asthma with AR from 26.67% to 54%. Furthermore, an overall prevalence of 10.17% (95% CI 9.08-11.27%) was ascertained for AR with asthma, and 38.97% (95% CI 34.42-43.53%) for asthma with AR. CONCLUSIONS The present meta-analysis comprehensively provided the first quantitative summary of the prevalence of AR with asthma and asthma with AR in China. Our study demonstrated that, in China, asthma and AR are often comorbid diseases and co-exist in the same patients. There is a close correlation between AR and asthma from an epidemiological standpoint.