Leukotriene receptor antagonist drugs: A tool to face chronic urticaria in children?

Abstract

Urticaria is a heterogeneous group of diseases. All types and subtypes of urticaria share a common distinctive skin reaction pattern, i.e., the development of urticarial skin lesions and/or angioedema. Chronic urticaria/angioedema has traditionally been defined as daily or almost daily symptoms for more than 6 weeks. We searched MedLine database and carried out a manual search with the aim of assessing the possible use of leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) in children with chronic urticaria (CU). Leukotrienes (LT) production from mast cells, basophils and eosinophils has been confirmed in CU patients and several studies in adults have shown that LTRAs have beneficial effect in the treatment of this disease. However, there are no studies evaluating the effectiveness of these drugs in children and no evidence that LTRAs could improve urticaria symptoms even in this age group. However, because of safety and good tolerability of montelukast as early as six-month-old, this review could represent an opportunity to encourage researchers to publish controlled trials using antileukotrienes in children with CU.

Keywords

Urticaria - chronic urticaria - angioedema - leukotriene receptor antagonists - children