Letter to the editor: Sodium cromoglycate in childhood asthma

Edwards, A., Holgate, S., Howell, J., Warner, J., Stevens, M., Åberg, N., Callaghan, B., Ikura, Y., König, P., Reinhardt, D., Stenius-Aarniala, B. and Weinberg, E. (2001) Letter to the editor: Sodium cromoglycate in childhood asthma. Thorax, 56 (4), 331-332.

Abstract

The review of placebo controlled trials of sodium cromoglycate (SCG) in childhood asthma by Tasche et al1 concludes that "there is insufficient evidence that SCG has a beneficial effect as maintenance treatment in children with asthma".
We do not believe this conclusion is justified. The principal criteria for assessing the efficacy of inhaled SCG are the mean differences in the effect on the symptoms of cough and wheeze between SCG and placebo across all trials included in the review. The 95% confidence intervals for these differences are 0.12 to 0.27 for cough and 0.11 to 0.26 for wheeze. As the differences are in favour of SCG and the confidence intervals do not include zero, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that there is strong statistical evidence for a beneficial effect of SCG in children with asthma---the reverse conclusion to that presented.

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