Diagnosis and Treatment of Adult Patients with Cough

This is the 4th edition of the Cough Guidelines of the German Respiratory Society (DGP), written by and for respiratory, internal medicine, allergy, ear-nose-throat, gastroenterology specialists, speech therapists, and physiotherapists. In a modified Delphi process, the authors developed 12 key questions on classification, common causes of acute, subacute, and chronic cough: both as a symptom of respiratory diseases including the upper airways, reflux, and drug-related cough, and as a primary disease, i.e., unexplained chronic cough and refractory chronic cough due to hypersensitivity of the cough reflex. An in-person guideline conference followed to find evidence-based answers and recommendations, which were graded as strong, weak, or insufficient evidence for recommendation. A brief scientific background to the respective questions was then compiled by expert groups of authors. Diagnostic algorithms were created for acute, subacute, and chronic cough and reflux-related cough. The significantly reduced scope and improved overview make it easy to use it in daily practice. The guideline is available in digital form as a smartphone application (currently only in German): https://www.leila.de/de/.