Journal Article

Efficacy and safety profile of mucolytic/antioxidant agents in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a comparative analysis across erdosteine, carbocysteine, and N-acetylcysteine

Rogliani, Paola, Cazzola, Mario, Puxeddu, Ermanno, Calzetta, Luigino, Page, Clive, Matera, Maria Gabriella

2019

Overview

Background To date there are no head-to-head studies comparing different mucolytic/antioxidant agents. Considering the inconsistent evidence resulting from the pivotal studies on mucolytic/antioxidant agents tested in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and the recent publication of Reducing Exacerbations and Symptoms by Treatment with ORal Erdosteine in COPD (RESTORE) study, we have performed a meta-analysis to compare the efficacy and safety of erdosteine 600 mg/day, carbocysteine 1500 mg/day, and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) 1200 mg/day in COPD. Methods A pairwise and network meta-analyses were performed to assess the efficacy of erdosteine, carbocysteine, and NAC on acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD), duration of AECOPD, and hospitalization. The frequency of adverse events (AEs) was also investigated. Results Data obtained from 2753 COPD patients were extracted from 7 RCTs published between 2004 and 2017. In the pairwise meta-analysis mucolytic/antioxidant agents significantly reduced the risk of AECOPD (RR 0.74 95%CI 0.68–0.80). The network meta-analysis provided the following rank of effectiveness: erdosteine>carbocysteine>NAC. Only erdosteine reduced the risk of experiencing at least one AECOPD ( P  < 0.01) and the risk of hospitalization due to AECOPD ( P  < 0.05). Erdosteine and NAC both significantly reduced the duration of AECOPD (P < 0.01). The AEs induced by erdosteine, carbocysteine, and NAC were mild in severity and generally well tolerated. The quality of evidence of this quantitative synthesis is moderate. Conclusions The overall efficacy/safety profile of erdosteine is superior to that of both carbocysteine and NAC. Future head-to-head studies performed on the same COPD populations are needed to definitely confirm the results of this meta-analysis. Trial registration CRD42016053762 .

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Nature Publishing Group,BMC
• Subject: Acetylcysteine / Acetylcysteine - adverse effects / Acetylcysteine - therapeutic use / Agreements / Antioxidants / Antioxidants - adverse effects / Antioxidants - therapeutic use / Bias / Carbocysteine / Carbocysteine - adverse effects / Carbocysteine - therapeutic use / Care and treatment / Chronic obstructive lung disease / Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease / Clinical trials / Comparative analysis / COPD / Development and progression / Effectiveness / Erdosteine / Expectorants / Expectorants - adverse effects / Expectorants - therapeutic use / Handbooks / Humans / Lung diseases / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Meta-analysis / N-acetylcysteine / Obstructive lung disease / Patients / Pneumology/Respiratory System / Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - diagnosis / Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - drug therapy / Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - epidemiology / Quality / Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - methods / Respiratory tract diseases / Risk / Safety / Signs and symptoms / Studies / Systematic review / Thioglycolates - adverse effects / Thioglycolates - therapeutic use / Thiophenes - adverse effects / Thiophenes - therapeutic use / Treatment Outcome