Chest
Volume 134, Issue 6, December 2008, Pages 1122-1128
Journal home page for Chest

Original Research
Cough
Evaluation of Chronic Cough in Children

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.08-0885Get rights and content

Chronic cough in children is among the problems that lead to frequent consultations with a doctor. In this study, we attempted to research the reasons for chronic cough by an evaluation method using the guidelines that were suggested for children by the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) in 2006. We studied 108 children between 6 and 14 years of age who had a cough that lasted for > 4 weeks. The patients were reevaluated during the second to fourth weeks, and until either the cough terminated or resolved. Twenty-five percent of the patients received diagnoses of asthma and asthma-like symptoms, 23.4% received diagnoses of protracted bronchitis, 20.3% received diagnoses of upper airway cough syndrome (UACS), and 4.6% received diagnoses of gastroesophageal reflux disease. Asthma and asthma-like symptoms, protracted bronchitis, and UACS were detected in order of frequency as the reason for chronic cough in children. We concluded that the 2006 ACCP guidelines for the management of chronic cough in children are effective and can be successfully utilized in a nonaffluent study setting.

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

Patients presenting to Dr. Behcet Uz Child Disease and Surgery Education and Research Hospital with chronic cough between November 2006 and May 2007 were included in the study. Chronic cough was defined as cough lasting > 4 weeks. Initially, a detailed medical history of the patient was obtained and a physical examination was completed. The duration and characteristics of the cough, wheezing, allergy, sinusitis and respiratory tract infection, and the presence of smoking exposure, atopy, and

Results

One hundred eight patients between 6 and 14 years of age, 56 of whom were women, were included. Of all patients, 61 patients (56.4%) were passive smokers, 56 patients (51.8%) had wet cough, 52 patients (48.2%) had dry cough, and 32 patients (29.6%) had a family history of atopic disease (demographic data for the patients are presented in Table 1).

According to the 2006 ACCP guidelines,17 after the physical examination and medical history a respiratory function test and chest radiograph were

Discussion

This is the first study that has aimed to evaluate children with chronic cough according to the 2006 ACCP guidelines.17 We have detected that asthma, asthma-like symptoms, protracted bronchitis, and UACS are the most common reasons for chronic cough in children 6 to 14 years of age.

In adults, it was shown that diagnoses could be made in > 90% of patients and > 85% of patients could be treated successfully using an algorithmic approach.13 In 1998, the ACCP recommended7 a similar protocol for

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    The authors have reported to the ACCP that no significant conflicts of interest exist with any companies/organizations whose products or services may be discussed in this article.

    Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).

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