The control of daytime and nighttime symptoms is an important measure of effectiveness of asthma therapy, especially, when administered once-daily.

To evaluate the efficacy of evening and morning administrations of mometasone furoate administered via a dry powder inhaler (MF-DPI) 400μg once-daily (QD) to show equivalence.

Open-label, randomized, parallel-group study in adult patients with mild to moderate asthma with a ≥3-month history of ICS use. Patients received MF-DPI 400μg QD either in the morning (AM) or evening (PM) for 12 weeks. The primary measure was the change in asthma symptoms from baseline to week 12. Secondary outcomes included response to treatment, adherence, inhaler device evaluation, use of rescue medication, urinary cortisol levels, and differential white blood cell count.

A total of 1537 patients were randomized; the efficacy population comprised 543 and 479 patients in the MF-DPI QD morning and evening groups, respectively. Mean improvements from baseline in daytime symptom scores at week 12 with morning and evening administration of MF-DPI 400μg were −0.11±0.59 and −0.12±0.68, respectively (95% CI, −0.095 to 0.061) and the corresponding improvements in nighttime symptom scores were −0.08±0.59 and −0.07±0.50, respectively (95% CI, −0.067 to 0.068). Use of rescue medication was the same in both groups (1 puff/day). MF-DPI QD was well tolerated regardless of time of administration.

This open-label study did not identify differences between morning and evening dosing of MF-DPI 400μg QD. A better effect of evening dosing compared to morning dosing found in previous double-blind placebo-controlled studies could not be confirmed.