Preventing Severe Asthma Exacerbations in Children. A Randomized Trial of Mite-Impermeable Bedcovers.

Rationale: Allergen exposure in sensitized individuals with asthma interacts with viruses to increase the risk of asthma exacerbation.

Objectives: To evaluate the use of house dust mite-impermeable bedding and its impact on severe asthma exacerbations in children.

Methods: We randomized mite-sensitized children with asthma (ages 3-17 yr) after an emergency hospital attendance with an asthma exacerbation to receive mite-impermeable (active group) or control (placebo group) bed encasings.

Predictors of objective cough frequency in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Rationale: Cough is one of the principal symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) but the potential drivers of cough are likely to be multifactorial and poorly understood.

Objectives: To quantify cough frequency in an unselected group of subjects with COPD and investigate the relationships between cough, reported sputum production, smoking, pulmonary function, and cellular airway inflammation.

Methods: We studied 68 subjects with COPD (mean age, 65.

Objective measurement of cough in otherwise healthy volunteers with acute cough.

Cough is one of the commonest reasons for medical consultation and acute cough associated with upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) is a global problem. In otherwise healthy volunteers complaining of cough associated with symptoms of URTI, we aimed to assess objective and subjective measures of cough and their repeatability and perform power calculations for the design of future studies to test therapies. We studied 54 otherwise healthy volunteers with acute cough (<3 weeks) (median age 22 yrs (interquartile range 21-26 yrs), 64% female, mean forced expiratory volume in 1 s 97.

A comparison of objective and subjective measures of cough in asthma.

Background: Cough is widely recognized as a key symptom in the diagnosis and the monitoring of asthma, but little is known about how best to assess cough in asthma.

Objective: To determine how objective cough rates correlate with subjective measures of cough in asthma.

Methods: We studied 56 subjects, median age 42.