An overview of international clinical trials with halometasone ointment in chronic eczematous dermatoses.

Four international, multicentre, comparative clinical trials were carried out by twenty-two dermatologists in 569 patients with non-infected chronic eczematous dermatoses in Austria, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. In these clinical trials halometasone ointment exhibited a very satisfactory therapeutic effect in all the five types of non-infected chronic eczematous dermatitis, namely chronic contact dermatitis, atopic dermatitis, lichen simplex chronicus, seborrhoeic dermatitis and nummular dermatitis. It yielded an overall success rate ('good' to 'very good' results) of 85% as against 71% obtained with the comparative preparations. With regard to therapeutic effect, halometasone ointment proved significantly superior (p = 0.0001) to Ultralan ointment but it was less effective than Dermovate ointment (p = 0.052). It yielded overall success rates higher than those obtained with Diproderm (84.6% versus 74.4%) and Synalar (88.5% versus 72%) ointments. Halometasone ointment was well tolerated and neither skin atrophy nor any systemic effect due to the transcutaneous systemic absorption of the corticoid was observed.