Table 3.
Changes in OCS dose with addition of macrolide
| Study | Macrolide | OCS | n | Duration of macrolide treatment (weeks) | Pretreatment OCS dose ± SEM (mg/day) | Post treatment OCS dose ± SEM (mg/day) | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeiger et al13 | TAO | MPn | 3 | 6 | 19.3 ± 6.8 | 14.7 ± 4.7 | 0.002 |
| Kamada et al14 | TAO | MPn | 6# | 12 | 34.2 ± 9.6 | 4.9 ± 1.0 | 0.00 |
| Eitches et al15 | TAO | MPn | 10£ | 52 | 19.8 ± 3.1 | 3.2 ± 0.4 | 0.00 |
| Flotte et al16 | TAO | MPn | 9 | 16–136Ω | 15.3 ± 3.04 | 1.4 ± 0.26 | 0.245 |
Notes: Piacentini et al and Shimizu et al are excluded because their patients were not OCS-dependent.
£
Although there were 11 patients in the study, one patient’s baseline methylprednisolone dose was described as “variable” and not included in this analysis;
Ω
duration of therapy was not specified per patient;
#
only the patients from the TAO-MPn group were used in our study to maintain homogeneity as described in the results section.13–15 The studies included in the meta-regression analysis. Flotte et al was excluded because duration was not discretely defined for each patient.
Abbreviations: TAO, troleandomycin; OCS, oral corticosteroids; MPn, methylprednisolone; SEM, standard error of the mean.