Managing unexplained chronic cough in adults: what are the unmet needs?

Abstract

Gibson and colleagues1 defined an unexplained chronic cough in adults as a cough that persists longer than 8 weeks and remains unexplained after investigation and supervised therapeutic trials done according to best-practice guidelines in an adherent patient. The authors further specified that the cough could remain unexplained because chronic cough had no diagnosable cause, a putative diagnosis was made but it was refractory to treatment, or the cause of the cough was not diagnosable and remained refractory to treatments.