Efficacy of different oral H1 antihistamine treatments on allergic rhinitis: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

ABSTRACT

Abstract Introduction Oral H1 antihistamines are the first-line treatment for patients with allergic rhinitis, while it is uncertain which kind and dosage of the antihistamines are more effective in improving symptoms of patients. Objective To evaluate the efficacy of different oral H1 antihistamine treatments on patients with allergic rhinitis by performing a network meta-analysis. Methods The search was executed in PubMed, Embase, OVID, the Cochrane Library and ClinicalTrials.gov for relevant studies. The network meta-analysis was performed by using Stata 16.0, and the outcome measures of the analysis were symptom score reductions of patients. Relative risks with 95% Confidence Intervals were used in the network meta-analysis to compare the clinical effect of treatments involved, and Surface Under the Cumulative Ranking Curves (SUCRAs) were also calculated to rank the treatments' efficacy. Results 18 eligible randomized controlled studies, involving a total of 9419 participants, were included in this meta-analysis. All the antihistamine treatments outperformed placebo in total symptom score reduction and each individual symptom score reduction. According to the results of SUCRA, rupatadine 20 mg and rupatadine 10 mg were ranked relatively high in reductions of total symptom score (SUCRA 99.7%, 76.3%), nasal congestion score (SUCRA 96.4%, 76.4%), rhinorrhea score (SUCRA 96.6%, 74.6%) and ocular symptom score (SUCRA 97.2%, 88.8%); rupatadine 20 mg and levocetirizine 5 mg were ranked relatively high in reductions of nasal itching score (SUCRA 84.8%, 83.4%) and sneezing score (SUCRA 87.3%, 95.4%); loratadine 10 mg was ranked the lowest in each symptom score reduction besides placebo. Conclusion This study suggests that rupatadine is the most effective in alleviating symptoms of patients with allergic rhinitis among different oral H1 antihistamine treatments involved, and rupatadine 20 mg performs better than rupatadine 10 mg. While loratadine 10 mg has inferior efficacy for patients to the other antihistamine treatments.