Cough has the primary focus in almost 10% of respiratory patients. Chronic cough is generally defined as a cough that lasts for more than 8 weeks. It commonly affects the physical, social and psychological areas of health. In the last decade, a number of advances has happened in the clinical approach to chronic cough. The cause of chronic cough can be recognized in 80–95% of cases by means of an anatomical diagnostic protocol.

Both adolescents and adults differ in certain characteristics, but the differences in the etiology of chronic cough between adults and adolescents is not specifically examined. The main objective of this study is to assess the causes of chronic cough in adolescent patients and adult patients.

Retrospectively, the electronic medical records were screened for patients with the primary diagnosis of chronic cough from 2016 - 2018. Clinical variables along with the causes of chronic cough were assembled in patients who met the inclusion criteria. Patients were allotted to adolescent (13 to 18 years) and adult (> 18 years) group based on their age. The distribution of causes related to chronic cough was compared by t-test and χ2 tests between both adolescent and adult groups. 16 adolescents and 73 adults with chronic cough were enrolled in the study.

The results of the study showed that the common causes of chronic cough were upper airway cough syndrome and cough-variant asthma in both adolescents and adults.

• The occurrence of post infectious cough in adolescents’ group was significantly higher as compared to adults (12.5% vs. 1.36%).
• Habitual cough was observed to be more common in the adolescent group than adults (6.25%:1.36%) and gastroesophageal reflux disease did not show same results (6.25%:20.54%).

The study concluded that there were moderate differences in the causes of chronic cough between adolescent group and adult patients. Understanding these differences might be helpful for physicians to make an appropriate differential diagnosis and referral decisions.

Source: Gao X, Hu G, Yan P. Causes of chronic cough in adolescent and adult patients. Med J Islam Repub Iran. 2020;34:166. Published 2020 Dec 9. doi:10.47176/mjiri.34.166