Mohammad Ali Yazdian ,Mohammad Askarfarashah, Mahmood Khodadoost, Mehdi Gheisari, Amir Hooshang Ehsani , Maryam Yazdian, Mohammad Kamalinejad
Urticaria, as one of the skin disorders affecting patients’ quality of life is characterized with pruritic erythematous and edematous self-limited lesions. Regarding the hypersensitivity nature of this disorder, suppression of mast cell activity and antihistamine release constitutes the core of current therapeutic guidelines. In Persian traditional medicine Plantago major L. (Plantago) has been frequently mentioned effective in treatment of urticarial lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of Plantago on urticarial lesions and compare it with the common antihistamine, Cetirizine. In this double-blind randomized clinical trial, 48 patients with urticaria, referred to dermatology wards of Razi, Loghman, and Tajrish clinics, Tehran, Iran, were followed up during the year 2013. Participants were randomly divided into two groups, each being treated with either Plantago extract or cetirizine. The number of lesions was recorded daily and satisfaction was evaluated depend on type of treatment. Data were analyzed with SPSS software (version17.0). A total of 48 patients including 20 males and 28 females with the age range of 10 to 70 were participated in this study. The median duration of therapy was 4.086 and 6.545 days for Plantago and Cetirizine, respectively. Based on results, Plantago proved to be more effective, although the difference was not statistically significant.The results of this study indicated that Plantago extract would be applied in treatment of patients with urticaria, as there was a near-significant decrease in duration of treatment.
