Objectives

To assess the severity of the top 5 22-item Sino-Nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) items ranked most important by patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), the effect of dupilumab on these items, and their association with objective disease measures.

Study design

Post hoc analysis of the SINUS-24 (NCT02912468) and SINUS-52 (NCT02898454) clinical trials.

Setting

Multinational, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group studies.

Methods

Patients ranked the SNOT-22 items most affecting their health at baseline. Item symptom severity (0-5 scale) was assessed at baseline, Week 24 (W24), and Week 52 (W52). Changes in nasal polyps score (NPS) and Lund-Mackay (LMK) scores were assessed in patients with/without SNOT-22 items improvements of at least 1 severity group point at W24 and W52.

Results

The SNOT-22 items ranked most important at baseline were "decreased sense of smell/taste" (87% of patients), followed by "nasal blockage" (82%), "postnasal discharge" (40%), "thick nasal discharge" (37%), and "wake up at night" (26%); 82%, 61%, 32%, 40%, and 26% of patients reported severe symptoms (score 4 or 5) for these items, respectively. Dupilumab improved score severity for all top 5 items versus placebo at W24 and W52. Improvements in NPS and LMK scores were numerically greater in patients with improvements in the SNOT-22 top 5 items.

Conclusion

Loss of smell/taste was ranked as the most important symptom by patients with CRSwNP. Dupilumab reduced the severity of the top 5 most important SNOT-22 items versus placebo, in parallel with improvements in objective disease measures.

Clinical trial registration

SINUS-24 and SINUS-52 clinical trials were registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, identifiers NCT02912468 and NCT02898454, respectively.