Abstract: Background: Asthma is a common chronic illness of childhood and it is the leading cause of childhood morbidity as measured by school absence, emergency department visit and hospitalization. All children with persistent asthma are in need for controller therapy. Beclomethasone dipropionate inhaler is corticosteroid medication used as controller of persistent asthma. Montelukast is a leukotrine receptor antagonist used as second line in controlling the symptoms of asthmatic child.
Objective: comparison between the effects of beclomethasone dipropionate inhaler and montelukast on the total serum level of immunoblobulin E and Childhood Asthma Control Test in asthmatic children aged 4 -11 years.
Methods: A randomized clinical trial was done in Children welfare Teaching Hospital from August 2017 to the end of October 2018. Ninety-seven patients were collected from asthma outpatient clinic aged 4-11 years with mild persistent asthma and randomly divided into beclomethasone group (51) patients and montelukast group (46) patients, the total serum IgE was done before initiation of treatment and another reading was done after 3 months. The score of symptoms control was evaluated by Childhood Asthma Control Test C-ACT after 1 month of treatment and another evaluation was done 2 months later.
Results: There was significant reduction in total serum IgE level (21% for montelukast group and 27% for beclomethasone group after 3 months of treatment compared to base line IgE and there was significant improvement in Childhood C-ACT scores (16% for montelukast group and 24% for beclomethasone group) after 3 months of treatment compared to first month of treatment. There was significant improvement in beclomethasone group compared to montelukast group after three months of treatment.
Conclusions: Both beclomethasone and montelukast are effective controllers for asthma symptoms and reducing total serum IgE level. Beclomethasone is better than montelukast in improving C-ACT scores.
