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Video

Rhinology/Allergy

(A1111) Development of New-Onset Chronic Rhinosinusitis After COVID-19 Infection

Monday, October 13, 2025
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT
Location: OTO EXPO, Posters
Disclosure(s):
Justin Gabriel Lau: No relevant relationships to disclose.


Introduction: Several studies have looked at the interplay between COVID19 in patients with diagnosed chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), but the risk of developing CRS after contracting COVID19 has not been studied. This study seeks to evaluate the risk of new onset CRS after having COVID19 using a large national database.

Methods: TriNetX was queried for three cohorts between January 1st 2020 until December 31st 2023. The first cohort consisted of patients who only had an outpatient visit with a COVID diagnosis (COVID+ O). The second cohort consisted of patients hospitalized with COVID (COVID+ H). Finally, the control cohort (COVID-) was patients who had an outpatient visit without a COVID diagnosis. Cohorts were then compared with propensity matching for demographics (age, sex) and with and without matching for allergic rhinitis, asthma, and smoking. Comparisons with COVID+ H also included matching with pneumonia. The incidence of CRS and CRS with nasal polyps (NP) within 90 days of the index event were recorded and reported as odds ratios.

Results: The COVID+ O, COVID+ H, and COVID- cohorts contained 2527372, 2127637, and 10708782 patients respectively. Compared to COVID-, COVID+ O had an increased risk for developing CRS (OR: 2.877, 95% CI: 2.773, 2.985) and NP (OR: 2.254, 95% CI: 1.991, 2.552). For the COVID+ H group, there was only increased risk for CRS (OR: 1.686, 95% CI: 1.544, 1.68). When comparing COVID+ H and COVID+ O, the COVID+ H cohort had a decreased risk for developing CRS (OR: 0.593, 95% CI: 0.571, 0.616) and NP (OR: 0.542, 95% CI: 0.474, 0.619).

Conclusions: Patients with COVID19 had a higher risk for developing CRS compared to a control population. This may be due to COVID+ patients having more physician visits following their diagnosis. Interestingly, hospitalized COVID patients had a lower risk of new-onset CRS than non-hospitalized COVID patients. Further study looking at differences between these two populations may help elucidate the reason non-hospitalized patients are at higher risk for CRS.