Clinical anti-inflammatory efficacy of arofylline. a new selective phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor, in dogs with atopic dermatitis

Forty atopic dogs were studied for 28 days after the oral administration of four randomised treatments: (A) arofylline (1 mg/kg) twice daily for four weeks; (B) prednisone (0.5 mg/kg) twice daily for the first week, once a da y during the second week and every 48 hours for the remaining two weeks; (C ) prednisone following the same protocol but at a dose of 0.25 mg/kg; or (b ) arofylline (1 mg/kg) twice daily for four weeks plus prednisone (0.25 mg/ kg) following the same protocol as in (B) and (C). The degree of pruritus a nd skin lesions and the side effects were evaluated and graded from 0 to 3 before and weekly during the treatments. In all cases there was a progressi ve clinical improvement in the clinical signs, with no statistical differen ces among the four treatments. However, many of the dogs treated with arofy lline vomited and had adverse gastrointestinal signs.