Good news for your patients who suffer from hay fever. According to the Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, intranasal corticosteroids -- prescription nasal sprays -- don't increase the risk of developing cataracts.

Intranasal corticosteroids are among the most effective medical treatments for the more than 35 million Americans who suffer from hay fever. But in the past, long-term use of oral corticosteroids for controlling extremely severe asthma has been linked to an increased risk for ocular side effects, including cataracts.

In the current study, researchers examined medical records, which included 286,078 patient records; 88,301 were intranasal corticosteroid users, 98,901 were oral corticosteroid users and 98,786 were not exposed to either form of the drug.

Researchers found 1,059 cases of cataracts, of which 217 were in the intranasal corticosteroid group, 629 were in the oral corticosteroid group and 213 were in the group not exposed to corticosteroids. The incidence of cataracts for the intranasal corticosteroid group and the unexposed group was 1.0 per 1,000 people; for the oral corticosteroid group, it was 2.2 per 1,000 people.

Researchers also found that the risk of cataracts increased when a subject used more than one oral corticosteroid prescription. For those with two to four prescriptions, the incidence rate was 1.2 per 1,000 people. The incidence rate was 2.1 per 1,000 people for subjects with five to nine prescriptions. For those with 10 or more prescriptions, the incidence rate for cataracts climbed to 4.6 per 1,000 people.

Researchers concluded there was no increased risk of cataracts associated with the use of intranasal corticosteroids, despite the fact that oral corticosteroid use was associated with an increased risk of cataracts.