Cough: an unmet clinical need

Area of Science:

• Pulmonology
• Clinical Medicine
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Cough is a prevalent symptom leading to significant healthcare resource utilization.
• Current therapeutic strategies for various cough types demonstrate limited efficacy and/or safety concerns.
• Despite its clinical significance, research in cough diagnostics and therapeutics has yielded disappointing outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the limitations in current cough management strategies.
• To identify unmet needs in the diagnosis and treatment of acute, subacute, and chronic cough.
• To emphasize the need for novel, effective, and safe anti-tussive agents and objective cough monitoring tools.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and synthesis of existing research on cough etiology, diagnosis, and treatment.
• Analysis of current therapeutic inadequacies for acute, subacute, and chronic cough.
• Identification of challenges in diagnosing conditions like upper airway cough syndrome and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease as cough causes.

Main Results:

• Available medications for acute cough lack proven efficacy or have significant side effects.
• Subacute cough is often unresponsive to standard anti-tussive therapies.
• Diagnosing chronic cough requires differentiating between specific syndromes and inadequately treated conditions.

Conclusions:

• There is a critical need for improved diagnostic methods and more effective treatments for cough.
• Development of safe and efficacious anti-tussive agents is essential for symptomatic relief across cough etiologies.
• Validated ambulatory cough counters are needed to advance clinical assessment and research in cough.