Efficacy of short-term prednisolone treatment in patients with chronic eosinophilic pneumonia
Yoshiyuki Oyama, Tomoyuki Fujisawa, Dai Hashimoto, Noriyuki Enomoto, Yutaro Nakamura, Naoki Inui, Shigeki Kuroishi, Koshi Yokomura, Mikio Toyoshima, Takashi Yamada, Toshihiro Shirai, Masafumi Masuda, Kazumasa Yasuda, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Kingo Chida, Takafumi Suda, Yoshiyuki Oyama, Tomoyuki Fujisawa, Dai Hashimoto, Noriyuki Enomoto, Yutaro Nakamura, Naoki Inui, Shigeki Kuroishi, Koshi Yokomura, Mikio Toyoshima, Takashi Yamada, Toshihiro Shirai, Masafumi Masuda, Kazumasa Yasuda, Hiroshi Hayakawa, Kingo Chida, Takafumi Suda
Abstract
In patients with chronic eosinophilic pneumonia (CEP), dramatic improvements are seen in response to corticosteroid therapy; however, relapse is common after treatment has ceased. The optimal duration of corticosteroid therapy remains unclear. In a randomised, open-label, parallel group study, eligible patients with CEP received oral prednisolone for either 3 months (3-month group) or 6 months (6-month group), followed by 2 years observation. All patients were treated with an initial dose of prednisolone of 0.5 mg·kg(-1)·day(-1), which was then tapered and discontinued at either 3 or 6 months. The primary end-point was relapse during the follow-up period. In the final analysis, there were 23 patients in the 3-month group and 21 patients in the 6-month group. All patients showed a good response to prednisolone treatment. There were 12 (52.1%) relapses in the 3-month group and 13 (61.9%) relapses in the 6-month group. No significant difference was found in the cumulative rate of relapse (p=0.56). All relapse cases showed improvement upon resumption of prednisolone treatment. No difference was observed in the rate of relapse between the 3- and 6-month prednisolone treatment groups for patients with CEP.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00632554.
Copyright ©ERS 2015.
Source: PubMed