מתוך medicontext.co.il
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In asthmatic patients, gastroesophageal reflux frequently causes coughing; rarely does coughing, through increased abdominal pressure, cause reflux of acid.
This finding comes from a study published in the December issue of the journal Gut. Dr. Amnon Sonnenberg and colleagues from the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albuquerque evaluated 24-hour esophageal pH tracings of 128 asthmatics, to determine the temporal relationship between coughing and acid reflux.
The researchers report that close to half of all coughing or wheezing episodes were related to acid reflux, and, Dr. Sonnenberg told Reuters Health, " in the vast majority of patients, reflux came first." Specifically, reflux preceded cough in 48 of 53 patients.
In the reverse direction, a cough preceded reflux in 28 of these patients, but in all instances they also had reflux before coughing.
It remains to be seen whether antireflux therapy can "break the cycle of reflux-induced cough," the researchers say. As Dr. Sonnenberg put it, "A clinical implication, reaching beyond the actual data presented in the article, would be to test whether a patient with asthma responds to anti-acid medication and to test whether the patient's asthma symptoms improve under such treatment."
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