Prospective validation of the “rhino conjunctivitis allergy-control-SCORE？” (RC-ACS？)

One-hundred-twenty-one consenting subjects (age 19-65y), including 81 patients with allergic rhino-conjunctivitis (RC) and 40 healthy controls, participated in the study. Patients rated daily nasal and eye symptoms using a 4-point scale (none, mild, moderate, and severe) and their use of anti-symptomatic medication. Validation criteria were pollen counts in the course of the study period. Discrimination capacity was analyzed by comparing the rhino-conjunctivitis Allergy-Control-SCORE？ (RC-ACS？) values of allergic patients and healthy controls. Convergent reliability was assessed by correlating RC-ACS？ values with the global severity of allergy, the quality of life, and the allergy-related medical consultations. Retest reliability was assessed by the correlation of the repeated measured RC-ACS？ scores during each of two consecutive weeks.Convergent reliability analysis indicated a significant correlation between RC-Allergy-Control-SCORE？ and global severity of allergy (r？=？0.691; p？<？0.0001), quality of life (r？=？0.757; p？<？0.0001) and allergy-related medical consultations (r？=？0.329; p？=？0.0019). RC-Allergy-Control-SCORE？ showed a good retest reliability (r？=？0.813; p？<？0.001) and discriminated extremely well between allergic patients and healthy controls (Median: 3.7 range: 0; 14.1 vs. Median: 0 range: 0; 2.9; p？<？0.001), with a sensitivity of 93.8% and a specificity of 92.5% at a score value of 0.786.The RC-ACS？ can be considered as valid and reliable to assess the severity of rhino-conjunctivitis severity in clinical trials and observational studies.Recently we reported the validation of the “Allergy-Control-SCORE？ (ACS)” which includes three categories: lung, nose and eyes [1]. Now we report the validation of the score for eyes and nose, only. With this new score we suggest an approach which covers a symptom score, and a medication score, for eyes and nose symptoms and use of symptomatic allergy medication to a combined symptom-medication score (SMS), the Rhino-