Baclofen vs. Dextromethorphan in the treatment of coughing: a randomized clinical trial.

Background: Cough is one of the most common symptoms for which outpatient care is sought. Since, a few research evaluated efficacy and therapeutic effect of baclofen in remedy of cough (especially chronic cough), In this study we compared the efficacy of oral Baclofen 20 mg with Dextromethorphan to improvement of cough in two groups. Methods: In this double blind randomized clinical trial, 120 patients with chronic cough (up to three weeks) that were referred to respiratory diseases clinic of Ali Ebn-e Abitaleb (AS) hospital in Zahedan, Iran at 2007 were randomly devided to two groups. 60 peoples in each, (baclofen recipient group with mean age 32.32±6.51 and dextromethorphan recipient group with mean age 31.54±5.06 year) were evaluated for qualitative decline of severity, period and duration of cough for 14 days. Results: In baclofen recipient group 73.3% and in dextromethorphan recipient group 65% all patients had decline of severity, period and duration of the cough. Statistically, there were no significant differences between two groups in regard to qualitative decline of severity, period and duration of cough (p>0.05). Also, there were no drug related side effects in the patients. Conclusions: Baclofen decreased severity, period and duration of cough more than dextromethorphan. Because there were no significant differences between two groups, we needed to do more quantitative researches to compare them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]