The sensitivity of tussiphonography for assessing the effectiveness of treatment

Our previous studies have demonstrated that tussiphonogram is suitable not only for the detection of pathological condition in the respiratory tract but also for treatment effectiveness assessment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possibilities of tussiphonography in detection of already little pathological changes in the airways and lungs. Therefore the changes of voluntary cough sound indexes were compared with pulmonary function tests in selected group of asthmatics before and after a pulsatile electromagnetic therapy in which the effect of therapy on pulmonary function tests was minimal. After magnetotherapy in 18 patients with increased expiratory forced lung capacity by 7.3% and increased peak inspiratory flow by 31.7% in average the voluntary cough sound intensity decreased by 37.8%, the sound duration shortened by 11% and the sound pattern showed the tendency to normalization. The improvement of mentioned cough indexes was absent in 17 patients who were treated by magnetotherapy too, but at the same time suffered from respiratory viral infection and in 22 patients treated only with climatotherapy and antiasthmatics. Changes of flow-volume loops in patients were not in the close relation to other followed indices. The correlation analysis showed a functional connection in relative differences of cough sound indices and some pulmonary function tests. The results confirmed the suitability of tussiphonography to indicate even mild pathological changes in respiratory tract. (Fig. 4, Ref. 21.)