Effects of intranasal mometasone furoate on blood pressure in patients with allergic rhinitis

Background: Nasal congestion as the main symptom in patients with allergic rhinitis can impair nasal breathing. It causes hypoxia and concomitant sympathetic system activation, which may also lead to increased blood pressure levels in these patients. Objective: We postulated that appropriate therapy, including intranasal steroids, decreases blood pressure levels in patients with allergic rhinitis. Methods: In our study, we investigated the effect of intranasal steroid (4 weeks of mometasone furoate) on blood pressure changes in 45 patients with allergic rhinitis whose main complaint was nasal congestion. We used ambulatory monitoring for determining blood pressure levels before and after intranasal steroid therapy. None of the patients had any other systemic diseases. Results: We found a significant decrease of daytime systolic and diastolic blood pressures and mean blood pressure values (daytime systolic blood pressure: 120 vs. 117 mmHg, p = 0.024; daytime diastolic blood pressure: 73 vs. 71 mmHg, p = 0.027; daytime mean blood pressure: 86 vs. 83 mmHg, p = 0.007). Although insignificant, we also found lower night-time systolic and mean blood pressure values (nighttime systolic blood pressure: 109 vs. 107 mmHg, p = 0.182; nighttime mean blood pressure 77 vs. 73 mmHg, p = 0.116). Conclusions: We found that post-treatment daytime average systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure levels were significantly lower compared to values obtained during exacerbation of allergic rhinitis. Decrease in blood pressure with treatment of allergic rhinitis and nasal congestion suggests that nasal congestion and impaired nasal respiration may affect blood pressure and potentially cause serious problems in hypertensive patients with allergic rhinitis.