Efficacy and compliance of loratadine dry syrup 1% in pediatric patients with pruritic skin disease

Abstract

Clinical efficacy and preference for loratadine dry syrup 1%, a second generation antihistamine in the treatment of pruritic skin disease were evaluated in 91 pediatric patients. A significant improvement of the primary endpoint, the severity of pruritus and skin eruption, was observed at 1 week after the start of loratadine treatment and the efficacy of improvement was maintained at 2 weeks after the start of treatment. A visual analogue scale (VAS) score of pruritus also showed similar clinical efficacy. The global improvement rate was scored as "improved" or better in 91.3% of the patients. As for the safety profile, only epistaxis was reported in 1 patient and loratadine was well tolerated. In addition, the survey of the patients' preference for loratadine conducted after treatment showed that more than 90% of the patients who responded to the questionnaire did not hesitate to swallow the drug, and 94% of the responders did not miss or hardly missed the doses of loratadine. After taking loratadine, the effect of the drug became apparent within a few hours in 81% of the responders, and 72% of the patients or their parents wished to continue treatment with loratadine while 5% did not. These results suggested that loratadine dry syrup 1% might be a highly beneficial medication for the treatment of pruritic skin disease in pediatric patients.