Differential Diagnosis of Chronic Cough Cough may be characterized as acute (lasting less than three weeks), subacute (lasting three to eight weeks), or chronic (persisting beyond eight weeks).2 Acute cough may develop because of viral upper respiratory tract infection (the most common cause), acute bacterial sinusitis, exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), allergic rhin...

Cough is the most common symptom for which medical treatment is sought in the outpatient setting. Chronic dry cough poses a great diagnostic and management challenge due to myriad etiologies. Chronic cough has been commonly considered to be caused by gastroesophageal reflux, post-nasal drip or asthma. However, recent evidences suggest that many patients with these conditions do not have cough, ...

At the recent 2011 ERS congress in Amsterdam, the founding meeting took place of the ERS Task Force on the “Diagnosis and classification of chronic cough – Consensus Document”. Briefly, two objectives were defined: one, to consolidate the new concept of chronic cough hypersensitivity syndrome; and two, the need to group within this syndrome all those entities associated with chronic cough, as a...