The most important symptoms for diagnosing any respiratory disease in a child are nocturnal cough and wheeze. However, the objective measurements of these symptoms are never done.

The objective of this study is to understand the use of an automated detection system to evaluate breath sounds objectively. It is done in comparison to cough and wheeze questionnaires and its feasibility in clinical practice is also evaluated.

Forty-nine recordings of 39 children were processed as follows:

• Asthma = 13 recordings
• Cystic fibrosis = 2 recordings 
• Pneumonia = 5 recordings
• Suspicion of habit cough = 7 recordings 
• Prolonged, recurrent or chronic cough = 13 recordings

The objective nocturnal recordings were compared with the cough and asthma scores. Time for audio validation of recordings took place between 2- and 40-min. The accurateness of the automated measurement was high for cough as compared to wheezing sounds. Nocturnal cough readings were correlated with few corresponding scores.

This is the first study that used a new device to evaluate nocturnal cough and obstructive breath sounds objectively in children suffering from various respiratory diseases. The evaluation was user-friendly. Further studies are required to evaluate the possible diagnostic and therapeutic benefits of this device.

Ref: Lindenhofer M, Roth L, Mädel C, et al. Wheeze and cough measurements at night in children with respiratory symptoms. BMC Pediatr. 2020 Dec 12;20(1):556. doi: 10.1186/s12887-020-02455-5. PMID: 33308199; PMCID: PMC7733140.