Why chronic cough in children is different

Recently, there have been robust changes in our knowledge of the neurophysiology of cough and novel clinical etiologies. Specifically, cough hypersensitivity in adults and protracted bacterial bronchitis (PBB) in children have been increasingly investigated, and differences between chronic cough in children and adults have been widely reported. In young children, postinfectious cough, bronchiectasis, airway malacia, PBB, and asthma appear to be the main causes of cough; however, by adolescence, the causes of cough are more likely to become those common in adults, namely, gastroesophageal reflux, asthma, and upper airway syndrome. These differences are attributed to changes in various characteristics of the respiratory tract, immune system, and nervous system between children and adults. New knowledge about the neural aspects of cough has revealed a complex network of pathways that initiate cough. The effect of inflammation on cough neural processing occurs at multiple peripheral and central sites within the nervous system. Evidence exists that direct or indirect neuroimmune interaction induces a complex response, which can be altered by mediators released by the sensory or parasympathetic neurons and vice versa. During childhood, the respiratory tract and the nervous system undergo a series of anatomical and physiological maturation processes that produce the cough neural circuits. Alterations provoked by various pathological processes, noxious agents, infection, and inflammation during the developmental period can lead to persistent or irreversible modifications, which may explain why many adult patients, in addition to expressing high cough sensitivity, remain refractive to disease-specific therapies.