Diagnoses and Management of Adult Cough: an Indian Environmental Medical Association (EMA) Position Paper (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Cough is a common yet distressing symptom that results in significant health care costs from outpatient visits and related consultations. OBJECTIVE Understanding the pathobiology of cough in recent times has undergone an evolution with Cough hypersensitivity syndrome (CHS) being suggested in most cases of dry cough. In case of productive cough however ancillary mechanisms including impaired Mucociliary clearance in addition to hypermucosecretory bronchospastic conditions of Smoker’s cough, asthma-COPD overlap syndrome, AECB, allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis need to be critically addressed while optimizing patient care with symptomatic therapy in such cases while avoiding its misuse in most of the situations METHODS In this review, evidence-based graded recommendations on use of Pro- & Antitussives as a Position Paper were developed based on the Level and Quality of Scientific evidence as per Agency of Health Care and Quality Systems (AHRQ) and Clinical insights, offered by a multidisciplinary EMA panel in India. RESULTS Management of acute or chronic cough involves addressing common issues of environmental exposures and patient concerns before instituting supportive therapy with antitussives or bronchodilatory cough formulations containing mucoactives, anti-inflammatory or Beta-2 agonist agents CONCLUSIONS The analyses provides a real world approach on the management of acute or chronic cough in various clinical conditions including with Pro- or antitussive agents