Persistent dry cough

It’s that time of year: winter, and respiratory viruses are busy. 

As if it wasn’t enough to strike a blow for the germs and put the Gnomic voice out of action, the MicroGnome now has a cold in his gnose and a persistent dry cough. This, hopefully temporary affliction prompted a personal review of the professional literature. Here are some useful leads for the seasonally incapacitated:

• ACCP evidence-based guidelines
• Diagnosis & management of chronic persistent dry cough
• Prevalence, pathogenesis & causes
• Coughing & Bordetella pertussis

As we go to press the following infective agents feature prominently as contributors to the epidemic of persistent, hacking dry cough:

• Bordetella pertussis
• parainfluenza virus
• Mycoplasma pneumoniae

But it’s worth remembering that persistent dry cough has a longer list of potential causes, which is why evidence-based guidelines (above) appear here.

Causes include:

• post-viral cough
• asthma
• rhinosinusistis (postnasal drip, or ‘nasal catarrh’)
• gastro-oesophageal reflux
• ACE inhibitors