Background: It has been of great interest whether mometasone furoate (MF) is better than other inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) as the controller therapy in patients with moderate or severe asthma who had previously been taking ICSs.
Objective: The aim of this meta-analysis is to thoroughly compare the efficacy and safety of MF versus other ICSs with equipotent daily doses in those patients.
Methods: Relative databases were searched. Randomised controlled trials of more than or equal to 4 weeks' treatment duration comparing MF with other ICSs were reviewed.
Results: Six trials with 1354 randomised patients met the inclusion criteria. Significant differences favouring MF were found in all indices of pulmonary function. MF was superior compared to other ICSs in decreasing the frequency of rescue medication use and morning difficulty breathing score. There was no significant difference between MF and other ICSs therapy in morning wheezing score, cough score and percentage of patients with no nocturnal awakenings due to asthma. For the treatment-related adverse effects (AEs), treatment-related severe AEs, discontinuations due to AEs and some common symptom of AEs, MF was all similar to other ICSs in their incidence.
Conclusions: In adult patients with moderate or severe asthma who had previously been taking ICSs, MF was superior to other ICSs with equipotent daily doses as controller monotherapy in improving pulmonary function and decreasing the frequency of rescue medication use, and was similar to other ICSs in the incidence of AEs. These results demonstrated the priority of MF in asthma therapy.