In 2022, the group collaborated with national and international networks and institutions. Our members were called to be evaluator experts of national and international funding agencies and invited as speakers in national and international scientific events.
In 2022, the RAD Research Group published a total of 12 papers in WoS-indexed international journals, with an average impact factor of 11.320. From these, 100% were published in journals within the 1st quartile of JCR journal rankings; of these, 83.3% were published in D1 journals.
Five main publications:
1) Sousa-Pinto B, Anto A, Berger M, Dramburg S, Pfaar O, Klimek L, et al. Real-world data using mHealth apps in rhinitis, rhinosinusitis and their multimorbidities. Clin Transl Allergy. 2022 Nov;12(11):e12208. doi: 10.1002/clt2.12208. (IF: 5.657, Q1 in
Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine).
Justification: This article involves a thorough review of all existing applications for mobile phones and their capacity to adequately assess various aspects of disease (allergic rhinitis and asthma) monitoring, namely combined symptom-medication scores (a novel concept developed and applied by the network RAD members belong to and participated in, for monitoring of these diseases).
2) Bousquet J, Sousa-Pinto B, Anto JM, Amaral R, Brussino L, Canonica GW, et al. Identification by cluster analysis of patients with asthma and nasal symptoms using the MASK-air® mHealth app. Pulmonology. 2022 Nov 22:S2531-0437(22)00252-5. doi: 10.1016/j.pulmoe.2022.10.005. (IF: 9.216, D1 in Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine)
Justification: In this article, using MASK-air® app, we identified seven different profiles/phenotypes, based on the probability of having asthma and on its level of control. These ran from severe/uncontrolled asthma despite treatment (11.9-16.1% of MASK-air® users) to no evidence of asthma, although patients were labelled as such (33.0-40.2%). Furthermore, this classification was also validated in a study of 192 patients enrolled by physicians. This study has novel clinical implications in terms of diagnosis and monitoring of patients with asthma.
3) Sousa-Pinto B, Schünemann HJ, Sá-Sousa A, Vieira RJ, Amaral R, Anto JM, et al. Consistent trajectories of rhinitis control and treatment in 16,177 weeks: The MASK-air® longitudinal study. Allergy. 2023 Apr;78(4):968-983. doi: 10.1111/all.15574. (IF: 14.710, D1 in Immunology and Allergy).
Justification: This article is relevant because we identified ten different clusters among weeks with medication use. Very importantly, we detected that co-medication and medication change schemes were common in uncontrolled weeks, reinforcing the hypothesis that patients treat themselves according to their symptoms, which has very relevant clinical implications.
4) Sousa AC, Pastorinho MR, Masjedi MR, Urrutia-Pereira M, Arrais M, Nunes E, et al. Issue 1 - "Update on adverse respiratory effects of outdoor air pollution" Part 2): Outdoor air pollution and respiratory diseases: Perspectives from Angola, Brazil, Canada, Iran, Mozambique and Portugal. Pulmonology. 2022;28(5):376-395. doi: 10.1016/j.pulmoe.2021.12.007. (IF: 9.216, D1 in Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine).
Justification: In this update article, written under the aegis of GARD-Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases, we showed that adverse respiratory effects due to air pollution, even at low levels, have been confirmed by epidemiological studies carried out in various countries. However, our analysis also showed that evidence from LMICs is heterogeneous and relatively limited, although these countries are severely affected by air pollution. We concluded that further longitudinal cohort studies designed to study and quantify the link between exposure to air pollutants and respiratory diseases are needed, particularly in LMICs, which has important public health implications.
5) Arrais M, Maricoto T, Nwaru BI, Cooper PJ, Gama JMR, Brito M, et al. Helminth infections and allergic diseases: Systematic review and meta-analysis of the global literature. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2022;149(6):2139-2152. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.12.777. (IF: 14.290, D1 in Immunology and Allergy).
Justification: In this systematic review, we summarised for the first time that helminth infections may increase the risk of bronchial hyperreactivity in children and atopy in adults. In any case, we also showed that the degree of evidence was low to moderate. Thus, our article suggested that well-designed longitudinal cohort studies are needed to help clarify potential causal associations between chronic helminth infections and allergic diseases, and this also has implications for public health.