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A 4 year old girl presents with an itchy urticarial rash. There were no other symptoms. Her general practitioner has prescribed an oral antihistamine but the rash has persisted. You wonder if there is a role for oral steroids in this otherwise well child.
Structured clinical question
In a child with acute urticaria [patient], does the addition of oral steroids to antihistamines [intervention] lead to more rapid resolution of symptoms [outcome]?
Search strategy and outcome
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews using search term "urticaria": no relevant results.
Medline 1966 to October 2002 using the OVID interface. ("exp urticaria OR urticaria$.mp" AND "exp steroids OR steroid$.mp OR exp adrenal cortex hormones OR corticosteroid$.mp") LIMIT to [human AND RCT]. Search results - 21 articles, of which two were relevant.