Acute sinusitis may be easily treated with steroids
Stronger dosages of nasal steroids prove effective for treating acute sinusitis than any other treatment option, as per a review presented by Anca Zalmanovici, a family physician at Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikva, and her co-author.
The review appeared in an issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, which is an organization of international repute for evaluating research in the segment of health care.
Allen Seiden, M.D., director of the University of Cincinnati Taste and Smell Center, said that more data is very much required before routine recommendations on the use of intranasal corticosteroids can be made.
From News-Medical.Net:
Study participants, who underwent X-rays or nasal endoscopy to confirm diagnosis, received either a placebo or intranasal corticosteroids for two or three weeks, alone or in combination with antibiotics. Intranasal corticosteroids used included fluticasone propionate (Flonase), mometasone furoate (Nasonex) and budesonide (Rhinocort).
Overall, 73 percent of the patients treated with nasal steroids experienced relief or marked improvement of symptoms during the study period, compared with only 66.4 percent of patients who received the placebo.
“For every 100 patients treated with intranasal corticosteroids, seven additional patients had complete or marked symptom relief,” compared to those in the placebo group, the reviewers found.
Researchers pooled data from three of the four studies, excluding the lowest-quality study from the statistical analysis.
None of the studies reported serious side effects, and rates of sinusitis relapse were similar between the treatment and placebo groups.
Stronger doses of nasal steroids appeared to work better. Patients receiving daily doses of 400 micrograms were more likely to experience relief of sinusitis symptoms, than were patients receiving 200-microgram doses.
The study results and reviews are good enough to suggest that the present clinical rationale behind addition of an intranasal corticosteroid to antibiotic therapy is justified to a significant extent, as per the involved researchers.
