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Treatment of chronic idiopathic urticaria with levamisole: a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial

Zhang H, Shan C, Hua Z, Zhao P, Zhang H

The Journal of international medical research, 2009

132 participants · 7 citations

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of treating chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) with levamisole in combination with levocetirizine. This was a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial that included 132 patients with active CIU who were treated for 6 weeks with either levocetirizine alone (control group; n = 65) or levamisole plus levocetirizine (treatment group; n = 67). Response to therapy was evaluated by measuring the efficacy rate. After 2 weeks of treatment, there was no significant difference in the efficacy rate between the treatment and control groups (54.84% and 42.37%, respectively). After 6 weeks of treatment, a statistically significant difference in the efficacy rate was observed between the groups (76.27% and 54.39% for the treatment and control groups, respectively). This study demonstrated that a combination of levamisole plus levocetirizine is more effective than levocetirizine alone and potentially provides a new, promising approach to the treatment of CIU.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 132 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

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