Tuberc Respir Dis.  1997 Feb;44(1):146-153.

Airway hyperresponsiveness and etiology in patients with chronic cough

• Kim KH
• Lee GT
• Park SW
• Oh JH
• Ki SY
• Moon SH
• Jeong SH
• Kim HT
• Uh ST
• Kim YH
• Park CS
• Jin BW

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Chronic cough is commomly defined as a persistent or recurrent cough exceeding 3 week's duration. The prevalence of chroinc cough is reported to range from 14% to 23% for nonsmoking adults. The post nasal drip syndrome has been determined to be the most common cause of chronic cough, followed by asthma, chronic bronchitis, gastroesophageal reflux and bronchiectasis. Cough can be the only manifestation of asthma.. Bronchial provocation tests are useful in diagnosing cough variant asthma. We investigated the clinical or laboratory findings and the incidence of airway hyperresponsiveness and evaluated the etiology in patients with chronic cough. METHOD: We evaluated 46 patients with chronic cough. Methacholine challenge test were done.
RESULTS
The results were as follows : 1) Thirty - five percent(16/46) of the chronic cough patients and 44% of the post nasal drip syndrom(7/16) showed the positive responses to methacholine challenge test. 2) The underlying causes of chronic cough were post nasal drip syndrome in 35%, bronchitis in 21.7%, cough-variant asthma in 17.4%, and unknown condition in 25.9%. 3) Airway hyperresponsiveness in chronic cough was not related to respiratory symptom, nasal symptom, post nasal drip, smoking, derangement of ventilatory function, atopy, or sinusitis.
CONCLUSION
Airway hyperresponsivenss in patients with chronic cough increased in frequency when compaired with normal control, allergic rhinitis. Cough-variant asthma account for 17.4% of patients with chronic cough.

MeSH Terms

Adult
Asthma
Bronchial Provocation Tests
Bronchiectasis
Bronchitis
Bronchitis, Chronic
Cough*
Gastroesophageal Reflux
Humans
Incidence
Methacholine Chloride
Prevalence
Rhinitis
Sinusitis
Smoke
Smoking
Methacholine Chloride
Smoke