ArticleAllergy, asthma & immunology research2019
Inhaled Corticosteroids and Placebo Treatment Effects in Adult Patients With Cough: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.
Article in Allergy, asthma & immunology research, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Performance of fractional exhaled nitric oxide in predicting response to inhaled corticosteroids in chronic cough: a meta-analysis.Annals of medicine · 2021Pooled it
- How Will a Treatable Traits Approach Reshape Clinical Practice in Chronic Cough?Allergy, asthma & immunology research · 2025Review
- Clinical and demographic characteristics of patients presenting with post-infectious bronchial hyperresponsiveness at a pulmonology clinic.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Chronic cough as a disease.ERJ open research · 2024Review
- Article
- Article
- Working with patients' treatment expectations - what we can learn from homeopathy.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Is fractional exhaled nitric oxide a treatable trait in chronic cough: a narrative review.Journal of thoracic disease · 2023Review
- Observational
- Bronchodilators or inhaled corticosteroids for postinfectious cough.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2023Article
- WAO-ARIA consensus on chronic cough - Part III: Management strategies in primary and cough-specialty care.The World Allergy Organization journal · 2022Review
- Chronic cough: new insights and future prospects.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2021Review
- Impact of Chronic Cough on Health-Related Quality of Life in the Korean Adult General Population: The Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2010-2016.Allergy, asthma & immunology research · 2020Article
- Azithromycin for sarcoidosis cough: an open-label exploratory clinical trial.ERJ open research · 2020Article
- Perspectives on chronic cough in Korea.Journal of thoracic disease · 2020Review
- Recent progress in the management of chronic cough.The Korean journal of internal medicine · 2020Review
- Review
- New ERS cough guidelines: A clinical framework for refining the patient management strategy.Asia Pacific allergy · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeInhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) are often considered an empirical therapy in the management of patients with cough. However, ICS responsiveness is difficult to interpret in daily clinical practice, as the improvements may include placebo effects or self-remission. We aimed to evaluate ICS and placebo treatment effects in adult patients with cough.
methodsElectronic databases were searched for studies published until June 2018, without language restriction. Randomized controlled trials reporting the effects of ICSs compared with placebo in adult patients with cough were included. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted to estimate the treatment effects. Therapeutic gain was calculated by subtracting the percentage change from baseline in the cough score in the ICS treatment group from that in the placebo treatment group.
resultsA total of 9 studies were identified and 8 studies measuring cough severity outcomes were included for meta-analyses. Therapeutic gain from ICSs ranged from -5.0% to +94.6% across the studies included; however, it did not exceed +22%, except for an outlier reporting very high therapeutic gains (+45.6% to +94.6%, depending on outcomes). Overall ICS treatment effects in cough severity outcomes were small-to-moderate (standardized mean difference [SMD], -0.38; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.54, -0.23), which were comparable between subacute and chronic coughs. However, pooled placebo treatment effects were very large in subacute cough (SMD, -2.58; 95% CI, -3.03, -2.1), and modest but significant in chronic cough (SMD, -0.46; 95% CI, -0.72, -0.21).
conclusionsOverall therapeutic gain from ICSs is small-to-moderate. However, placebo treatment effects of ICS are large in subacute cough, and modest but still significant in chronic cough. These findings indicate the need for careful interpretation of ICS responsiveness in the management of cough patients in the clinic, and also for rigorous patient selection to identify ICS-responders.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.