Betamethasone

Betamethasone is an adrenal cortical hormone drug and an isomer of dexamethasone. It has the same effect as prednisolone and dexamethasone, and is mainly used for allergic and autoimmune inflammatory diseases. It is now mostly used for active rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus erythematosus, severe bronchial asthma, severe dermatitis, etc., and is also used for the comprehensive treatment of certain infections.
It has multiple pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory, anti-rheumatic, anti-allergic and immunosuppressive. The anti-inflammatory effect is stronger than dexamethasone, triamcinolone, hydrocortisone, etc. It can reduce and prevent the tissue's response to inflammation, eliminate the fever, redness and swelling caused by local non-infectious inflammation, thereby reducing the manifestations of inflammation.

The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews compared betamethasone and dexamethasone for fetal lung maturation in pregnant women at risk of preterm birth.
Dosage regimen: betamethasone 12mg, im, qd, 2d and dexamethasone 6mg, im, bid, 2d.
The results showed that betamethasone was superior to dexamethasone in reducing perinatal mortality, bronchopulmonary development, reducing neonatal sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, and reducing neonatal ICU admission rates.
The anti-inflammatory effect of betamethasone is stronger than that of dexamethasone, and a smaller dose is required to achieve an equivalent anti-inflammatory effect.
Betamethasone is safer.
Betamethasone has less effect on patients' blood sugar.

Betamethasone injection, cream.

Reference

[1].Antignac JP, Le Bizec B, Monteau F, Andre F (January 2002). "Differentiation of betamethasone and dexamethasone using liquid chromatography/positive electrospray tandem mass spectrometry and multivariate statistical analysis". Journal of Mass Spectrometry. 37 (1): 69–75. Bibcode:2002JMSp...37...69A. doi:10.1002/jms.260. PMID 11813313.