Skip to main content

Table 1 Commonest causes of chronic cough in patients investigated in specialist clinics

From: Cough variant asthma and atopic coughAsma variante con tosse e tosse atopica

Author

Patients' mean age in years (range)

  

Diagnosis (% of total)

  

Asthma syndrome

GERD

Rhinitis

Most common other causes

Irwin et al. 1981 [38]

50.3 (17-88)

25

10

29

Chronic bronchitis (12)

Poe et al. 1982 [39]

? (15-89)

36

0

8

Postinfectious (27)

Poe et al. 1989 [7]

44.8 (19-79)

35

5

26

Idiopathic (12)

Irwin et al. 1990 [4]

51 (6-83)

24

21

41

Chronic bronchitis (5)

Hoffstein 1994 [40]

47

25

24

26

Postinfectious (21)

O'Connell et al. 1994 [41]

49 (19-83)

6

10

13

Idiopathic (22)

Smyrnios et al. 1995 [42]

58 (18-86)

24

15

40

Chronic bronchitis (11)

Mello et al. 1996 [43]

53.1 (15-83)

14

40

38

Bronchiectasis (4)

Marchesani et al. 1998 [44]

51

14

5

56

Chronic bronchitis (16)

McGarvey et al. 1998 [10]

47.5 (18-77)

23

19

21

Idiopathic (18)

Palombini et al. 1999 [13]

57 (15-81)

59

41

58

Bronchiectasis (18)

Brightling et al. 1999 [11]

*

31

8

24

Postviral (13)

  1. Definition of abbreviation: GERD, gastroesophageal reflux disease.
  2. *No figures given for the total sample but mean age of 12/91 patients with eosinophilic bronchitis given as 52 (28-76) years.