| Methods |
Double‐blind, randomised, placebo‐controlled trial |
| Participants |
82 participants
Eligibility criteria: clinical features of fever, sore throat, enlargement of cervical lymph nodes and laboratory parameters of reversal of the ratio between lymphocytes and polymorphonuclear cells in the blood smear, presence of 'atypical' cells in over 5% of the blood smear and positive agglutination in dilutions of 1:64 or greater |
| Interventions |
Intervention: oral paramethasone acetate 2 mg (states equivalent to 5 mg prednisone). The initial dose was 8 tablets decreasing by 1 tablet a day so long as improvement continued
Control: placebo |
| Outcomes |
Duration of fever, hospital stay and sore throat |
| Notes |
Allocation concealment: adequate |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
States "used random numbers" |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
Unclear risk |
Not reported who was blinded |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Unclear risk |
— |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Unclear risk |
— |
| Other bias |
Unclear risk |
— |
