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Description of nighttime cough epochs in patients with stable COPD GOLD II–IV
Authors Fischer P, Gross V, Kroenig J, Weissflog A, Hildebrandt O, Sohrabi K, Koehler U
Received 19 October 2017
Accepted for publication 4 January 2018
Published 3 April 2018 Volume 2018:13 Pages 1071—1078
DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S154539
Checked for plagiarism Yes
Review by Single anonymous peer review
Peer reviewer comments 2
Editor who approved publication: Dr Richard Russell
Patrick Fischer,1 Volker Gross,1 Johannes Kroenig,2 Andreas Weissflog,3 Olaf Hildebrandt,2 Keywan Sohrabi,1,4 Ulrich Koehler2
1Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Applied Sciences, Giessen, Germany; 2Department of Pneumology, Intensive Care and Sleep Medicine, University Hospital of Marburg and Giessen, Marburg, Germany; 3Clinical Research Department, Thora Tech GmbH, Giessen, Germany; 4Institute for Medical Informatics, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Giessen, Germany
Purpose: Chronic cough is one of the main symptoms of COPD. Ambulatory objective monitoring provides novel insights into the determinants and characteristics of nighttime cough in COPD.
Materials and methods: Nighttime cough was monitored objectively by LEOSound lung sound monitor in patients with stable COPD II–IV. In 30 patients, with 10 patients in each stage group, nighttime cough was analyzed for epoch frequency, epoch severity (epoch length and coughs per epoch), and pattern (productive or nonproductive).
Results: Cough was found in all patients ranging from 1 to 294 events over the recording period. In 29 patients, cough epochs were monitored, ranging from 1 to 75 epochs. The highest amount of cough epochs was found in patients with COPD stage III. Active smokers had significantly more productive cough epochs (61%) than nonsmokers (24%).
Conclusion: We found a high rate of nighttime cough epochs in patients with COPD, especially in those in stage III. Productive cough was predominantly found in patients with persistent smoking. LEOSound lung sound monitor offers a practical and valuable opportunity to evaluate cough objectively.
Keywords: cough, COPD, nighttime, cough-monitor, lung sound, cough epochs
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