Efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids for patients with asthma: a descriptive review of randomized controlled trials
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) in patients with asthma based on changes in sputum eosinophil counts, through a review of relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs).Methods: Studies were retrieved from MEDLINE, EMBASE, the SYSTEM FOR INFORMATION ON GREY LITERATURE, and the INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION from February 1, 2003 to February 1, 2013 based on a comprehensive search strategy. Articles were screened through two stages: title and abstract; and full-text screening. RCTs enrolling patients with asthma, testing an ICS intervention, and reporting outcomes on changes in sputum eosinophil counts pre- and post-intervention were included. Following screening, data extraction, and quality appraisal, a descriptive synthesis of trials was conducted.Results: The search strategy retrieved 447 articles, of which 66 articles underwent full-text screening, resulting in 37 RCTs that met the inclusion criteria for this review. The articles were stratified according to the type of ICS: budesonide, fluticasone propionate, ciclesonide, beclomethasone dipropionate, and mometasone. Across trials, 9 of 16 budesonide, 5 of 14 fluticasone propionate, 4 of 9 of nine ciclesonide, 2 of 4 beclomethasone dipropionate, and 1 of 2 mometasone interventions demonstrated a statistically significant (p < 0.05) reduction in sputum eosinophil counts.Conclusion: This study detected differences between ICS treatments however the clinical relevance is uncertain. There is insufficient evidence to suggest the superiority of one ICS treatment over another. Further research needs to be conducted to evaluate the relative impact of ICS products upon eosinophil counts, as well as in clarifying what quantitative level of change in baseline eosinophil counts is required to observe a change in symptom improvement and disease control.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.037 | 0.140 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.011 | 0.011 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.023 | 0.022 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".