Efficacy of cineole in patients suffering from acute bronchitis: a placebo-controlled double-blind trial

OBJECTIVE: Cineole has mucolytic, bronchodilating and anti-inflammatory properties and reduces the exacerbation rate in patients suffering from COPD, as well as ameliorates symptoms in patients suffering from asthma and rhinosinusitis. Based on these effects, we therefore postulated the hypothesis that patients with acute bronchitis would also benefit from therapy with Cineole. METHODS: As part of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center-study, a total of 242 patients with confirmed acute bronchitis was randomly selected to participate. Over a period of 10 days, all patients were administered 3 x 200 mg of Cineole, or a respective placebo, per day. The primary outcome measure was a Bronchitis Sum Score, which summarises the relevant symptoms of acute bronchitis. RESULTS: After 4 days of treatment it was notable, that the patient group treated with Cineole, showed significantly more improvements of the bronchitis-sum-score than those of the placebo group (p = 0.0383). The statistical significant difference of the individual outcome measures was especially underlined by the frequency of cough fits by p = 0.0001 after 4 days. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of Cineole in the treatment of acute bronchitis were clearly measurable and could be proven after a treatment period of merely 4 days. This study corroborates the fact that Cineole actively and significantly reduces cough frequency after four days. Therefore it has been shown to have a great socioeconomic impact. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN: ISRCTN37784439