Evidence based case report: Twenty year cough in a non-smoker

BMJ 1998;316:1660-1661 ( 30 May )

Clinical review

Evidence based case report

Twenty year cough in a non-smoker

Editorial by Godlee

Paul Glasziou, reader in clinical epidemiology.

University of Queensland Medical School, Queensland 4006, Australia

P.Glasziou@spmed.uq.edu.au

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Mrs V was a 66 year old woman who said she had had a non-productive cough almost daily for 20 years. This had been treatedunsuccessfully in the past with antibiotics, but she was not takingany medication currently. Mrs V had good exercise tolerance, althoughshe had an occasional wheeze at night. She was a non-smoker andhad never lived with smokers. Her chest was normal on examination.Her peak expiratory flow rate was 500 (with a predicted valueof 380), and her spirometry result was good and showed minimal(<5%) response to $beta$ agonist. Nevertheless, because asthma is anintermittent but common cause of cough, and because Mrs V hadcomplained of nocturnal wheeze, I decided to try her on a $beta$ agonistaerosol (an alternative would have been an inhaled steroid, butthe response to treatment would have taken longer). Meanwhile,I resolved to track down the evidence about other possible causes. . . [Full text of this article]

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Perry, I. J, Bates, D., Zuccalà, G., Pedone, C., Carbonin, P., Glasziou, P. (1998). Evidence based case reports. BMJ 317: 1386b-1386 [Full text]

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