Rafael José VieiraCenter for Health Technology and Services Research (CINTESIS) | CINTESIS
Rafael José Vieira
MD
About
50
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
October 2014 - July 2016
Education
February 2021 - April 2021
September 2014 - July 2020
Publications
Publications (50)
Background
Several studies have suggested an impact of allergic rhinitis on academic productivity. However, large studies with real-world data (RWD) are not available.
Objective
To use RWD to assess the impact of allergic rhinitis on academic performance (measured through a visual analog scale – VAS education – and the WPAI+CIQ:AS questionnaire),...
Purpose of review
This review explores the relevance of eHealth technologies to address unmet needs in pediatric respiratory allergies, particularly allergic rhinitis (AR) and asthma. Given the increasing burden of these conditions, there is a pressing need for effective solutions to enhance disease surveillance, diagnosis, and management.
Recent...
There is insufficient evidence regarding the comparative efficacy and safety of pharmacological treatments of allergic rhinitis (AR). In the context of informing the 2024 revision of the Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines, we plan to perform three systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the desi...
Recommendations for or against the use of interventions need to consider both desirable and undesirable effects as well as patients' values and preferences (V&P). In the decision‐making context, patients' V&P represent the relative importance people place on the outcomes resulting from a decision. Therefore, the balance between desirable and undesi...
Rationale
It is unclear how each individual asthma symptom is associated with asthma diagnosis or control.
Objectives
To assess the performance of individual asthma symptoms in the identification of patients with asthma and their association with asthma control.
Methods
In this cross‐sectional study, we assessed real‐world data using the MASK‐air...
Objective
Caffeine is widely used in preterm infants to prevent or treat apnoea of prematurity. Adverse gastrointestinal effects of caffeine have not been thoroughly researched in preterm infants. With this systematic review and meta-analysis, we aim to summarise the results of trials on the gastrointestinal effects of caffeine in preterm infants....
Background
Analysis of X (formerly Twitter) posts can inform on the interest/perceptions that social media users have on health subjects. In this study, we aimed to analyse tweets on allergic conditions, comparing them with surveillance data.
Methods
We retrieved tweets from England on “allergy,” “asthma,” and “allergic rhinitis,” published betwee...
Background
There is insufficient systematised evidence on the effectiveness of individual intranasal medications in allergic rhinitis (AR).
Objective
To perform a systematic review to compare the efficacy of individual intranasal corticosteroids and antihistamines against placebo in improving the nasal and ocular symptoms and the rhinoconjunctivit...
Background
Asthma presents a significant health challenge, imposing a considerable burden on healthcare services. Discrepancies in asthma‐related hospitalisations may reflect underlying health disparities. We aimed to analyse inequities in asthma hospital admissions in mainland Portugal and Spain, from a regional perspective and considering sex and...
Background
Allergic rhinitis (AR) impacts patients' physical and emotional well‐being. Assessing patients' values and preferences (V&P) related to AR is an essential part of patient‐centered care and of the guideline development process. We aimed to systematically summarize the information about patients' V&P on AR and its symptoms and impact on da...
Background
Estimates of demographic metrics are crucial to assess levels and trends of population health outcomes. The profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on populations worldwide has underscored the need for timely estimates to understand this unprecedented event within the context of long-term population health trends. The Global Burden of D...
Background
In allergic rhinitis and asthma, adolescents and young adult patients are likely to differ from older patients. We compared adolescents, young adults and adults on symptoms, control levels, and medication adherence.
Methods
In a cross‐sectional study (2015–2022), we assessed European users of the MASK‐air mHealth app of three age groups...
Congenital Heart Defects are the most common abnormalities at birth, resulting in many short- and long-term consequences.
Objectives
In patients with transposition of the great arteries, surgical correction may achieve definitive treatment, so a thorough knowledge of the long-term outcomes, particularly neurodevelopment outcomes, is essential. The...
Introduction
Intranasal antihistamines and corticosteroids are some of the most frequently used drug classes in the treatment of allergic rhinitis. However, there is uncertainty as to whether effectiveness differences may exist among different intranasal specific medications. This systematic review aims to analyse and synthesise all evidence from r...
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic, systemic, autoimmune connective tissue disease that affects several vascular territories. This systematic review sought to assess the role of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in detecting subclinical microvascular alterations in SLE patients.
PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science database...
Plant species vary under different climate conditions and the distribution of pollen in the air and their trends can be used to assess the impact of climate change on public health. In 2015, MASK-air® (Mobile Airways Sentinel networK for rhinitis and asthma) was launched as a project of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Agei...
Background
Asthma and atopic dermatitis (AD) are chronic allergic conditions, along with allergic rhinitis and food allergy and cause high morbidity and mortality both in children and adults. This study aims to evaluate the global, regional, national, and temporal trends of the burden of asthma and AD from 1990 to 2019 and analyze their association...
Objectives:
Within the framework of the burden of disease (BoD) approach, disease and injury burden estimates attributable to risk factors are a useful guide for policy formulation and priority setting in disease prevention. Considering the important differences in methods, and their impact on burden estimates, we conducted a scoping literature re...
Platelet transfusions (PTx) are the principal approach for treating neonatal thrombocytopenia, a common hematological abnormality affecting neonates, particularly preterm infants. However, evidence about the outcomes associated with PTx and whether they provide clinical benefit or harm is lacking. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis...
Biomarkers for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients with rhinitis and/or asthma are urgently needed. Although some biologic biomarkers exist in specialist care for asthma, they cannot be largely used in primary care. There are no validated biomarkers in rhinitis or allergen immunotherapy (AIT) that can be used in clinical practice. Th...
Background:
Retinal toxicity with long-term hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) treatment is a major concern. This systematic review aims to assess the application of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) to detect microvascular alterations in patients under HCQ.
Methods:
PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases were systema...
Background:
Validated questionnaires are used to assess asthma control over the past 1-4 weeks from reporting. However, they do not adequately capture asthma control in patients with fluctuating symptoms. Using the Mobile Airways Sentinel Network for airway diseases (MASK-air) app, we developed and validated an electronic daily asthma control scor...
This systematic literature review aimed to provide an overview of the characteristics and methods used in studies applying the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) concept for infectious diseases within European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA)/European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries and the United Kingdom. Electronic databases and...
MASK‐air®, a validated mHealth app (Medical Device regulation Class IIa) has enabled large observational implementation studies in over 58,000 people with allergic rhinitis and/or asthma. It can help to address unmet patient needs in rhinitis and asthma care. MASK‐air® is a Good Practice of DG Santé on digitally‐enabled, patient‐centred care. It is...
Background:
In clinical and epidemiological studies, cut-offs of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) can be used to classify patients into groups of statistical and clinical relevance. However, visual analog scale (VAS) cut-offs in MASK-air® have not been tested.
Objective:
To calculate cut-offs for VAS global, nasal, ocular, and asthma sy...
Introduction
Data from mHealth apps can provide valuable information on rhinitis control and treatment patterns. However, in MASK‐air®, these data have only been analyzed cross‐sectionally, without considering the changes of symptoms over time. We analyzed data from MASK‐air® longitudinally, clustering weeks according to reported rhinitis symptoms....
Digital health is an umbrella term which encompasses eHealth and benefits from areas such as advanced computer sciences. eHealth includes mHealth apps, which offer the potential to redesign aspects of healthcare delivery. The capacity of apps to collect large amounts of longitudinal, real‐time, real‐world data enables the progression of biomedical...
Background Retinal toxicity with long-term hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) treatment is a major concern. This systematic review aims to assess the application of Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA) to detect HCQ-induced microvascular alterations. Methods PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searche...
The Control of Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma Test (CARAT) is a patient‐reported outcome measurement (PROM) assessing the control of asthma and allergic rhinitis (AR) at a 4 week interval. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the measurement properties of CARAT. Following PRISMA and COSMIN guidelines, we searched five bibliographic databases and...
Real-world data represent an increasingly important source of knowledge in health care. However, assessing their representativeness can be challenging. We compared (i) real-world data from a mobile app for allergic rhinitis (MASK-air®) on the usage of oral H1-antihistamines from 2016 to 2020 in 10 European countries with (ii) Google Trends data on...
Background
Different treatments exist for allergic rhinitis (AR), including pharmacotherapy and allergen immunotherapy (AIT), but they have not been compared using direct patient data (i.e., “real‐world data”). We aimed to compare AR pharmacological treatments on (i) daily symptoms, (ii) frequency of use in co‐medication, (iii) visual analogue scal...
Background
Evidence regarding the effectiveness of allergen immunotherapy (AIT) on allergic rhinitis has been provided mostly by randomised controlled trials, with little data from real‐life studies.
Objective
To compare the reported control of allergic rhinitis symptoms in three groups of users of the MASK‐air® app: those receiving sublingual AIT...
Background
Co‐medication is common among patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), but its dimension and patterns are unknown. This is particularly relevant since AR is understood differently across European countries, as reflected by rhinitis‐related search patterns in Google Trends. This study aims to assess AR co‐medication and its regional patterns...
Uveitis is among the leading causes of visual loss in the working age population. In non-infectious uveitis, corticosteroids are the first line therapy. We sought to review systematically the evidence regarding the regional corticosteroid delivery modalities in the treatment of non-infectious uveitis. A five-database search (Pubmed, ISI Web of Scie...
Background/aims
To compare different existent implants for noninfectious uveitis.
Methods
We performed a systematic review of randomized clinical trials (RCTs), searching in five electronic databases and screening reference lists of included studies and relevant reviews. We performed network meta-analysis to compare 0.18 mg fluocinolone acetonide...
Obstructive Lung Disease (OLD), as a group of diseases, includes Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma and bronchiectasis. In particular, COPD is predicted to be the third major cause of death in 2030. Therefore, in this study we aimed to analyse the trends in OLD hospitalisations in Portugal, from 2000 to 2010. Our retrospective obs...
Aim: To analyse the evolution of OLD hospitalisations in Portugal, from 2000 to 2010. Introduction: OLD is a group of diseases, which includes asthma, bronchiectasis and COPD. COPD will be the third major cause of death by 2030 and its hospitalisations represent a major burden. Nevertheless, studies on COPD hospitalisations are sparse. Methods: We...
The burden of hospitalisations for obstructive lung diseases (OLD) has not been sufficiently studied. We aimed to characterise the hospitalisations for OLD from 2000 to 2010 in all Portuguese public hospitals. We analysed hospital discharges with a diagnosis of OLD regarding the patients’ gender, age, residence and comorbidities. Of the 120 399 hos...