Chest
Original ResearchCoughA Novel Approach to Studying the Relationship Between Subjective and Objective Measures of Cough
Section snippets
Subjects
Patients complaining of chronic cough (> 8 weeks) were recruited from a specialist cough clinic in Manchester, England, over a 24-month period. Current smokers, ex-smokers with < 6 months of abstinence, and subjects taking angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors or opiates were excluded, as were those with a respiratory tract infection in the preceding month or contracted during the study. Ethical approval was granted by the local research ethics committee (South Manchester, No: 05/Q1403/117),
Subjects
Sixty-two subjects with chronic cough (mean age 56.8 years [± SD 10.8], 43 women, median cough duration 3.3 years [interquartile range (IQR) 2.0-10.0]), underwent cough monitoring with and without the esophageal impedance/pH catheter (median time between studies 36 days [IQR 15–49]). Of these, 60 subjects completed the cough and esophageal impedance/pH monitoring (two subjects did not tolerate the catheter), and 57 completed the subjective cough scores and VAS (five subjects failed to return
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate an improvement in objective cough frequency in chronic cough. This study also shows that a reduction by one-third in cough frequency was scored by the majority of patients as an improvement in their condition, suggesting that this change was clinically perceived. Despite this, the patients' subjective impressions of changes in cough severity were not correlated with objective changes in cough frequency. Furthermore, our data suggest that
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Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.org/site/misc/reprints.xhtml).
Funding/Support: This study was funded by a grant from the Moulton Charitable Trust, and Dr Smith was funded by a Stepping Stones Fellowship from the University of Manchester.