A Controlled Clinical Comparison of Nasal Decongestants in Acute Rhinitis

Abstract

Three familiar commercial nasal decongestants were compared in a doubleblind trial using patients suffering from acute rhinitic conditions. Variables measured were quantity of medication used within a given period of time, onset of action, frequency of application and duration of action. It was shown that in a given period of time the use of one trial product was significantly lower than that of the two other products with regard to establishing and maintaining free nasal breathing. There were indications that special biopharmaceutical factors in a product could control patients' self-dosage of the preparation thereby improving the risk/benefit relation considerably. Another important conclusion was that the patient himself could handle a medicine reasonably and responsibly thereby providing valuable additional data for evaluation of a product under trial (consumer orientated research).