Clinical Effects of Betamethasone 17, 21-dipropionate on Eczema

A double blind controlled study is done to compare the efficacy of 0.064% betamethasone 17, 21-dipropionate cream (BD) with that of 0.02% flumethasone pivalate cream (FP) on a hundred and six patients, having eczema with similar lesions on both sides of body, in seven institutions. Both sides of each patient are designed as a randomized block, being allocated by the two kinds of creams at random. That is, a kind of cream is on a random side and then the other cream is on the reverse side, for every patient. Thus the creams are applied two or three times a day for about a week (5-9 days) without any occlusion. General improvements and changes of severity on skin findings are statistically tested by the method of analysis of variance. Also the relative efficacy of BD to FP is tested by a method of Scheffe's paired comparison. Conclusionally, the results due to such analyses show significantly the superiority of BD. In view of the side effects, each patient in exacerbation is investigated, but it is not clear whether the side effects exist or not in this study.