XLIII - Airway involvement
Cough (lone)
Last update 17/06/2026
(Fr: toux chronique isolée). Can be transient or longlasting. Lone: withouth explanatory pulmonary infiltrates, pulmonary edema (sometimes interstitial and subclinical), bronchospasm, pleural effusion, lympnode enlargement, or airway inflammation and/or endobronchial changes. Typically the cough is subacute or chronic, dry and/or nagging. New, lone otherwise unexplained, sometimes intractable cough. For cough workup see PMID 24079681. Typically, drug-induced lone cough is subacute or chronic, dry, nonproductive, annoying and not amenable to inhaled bronchodilator, corticosteroid or other therapies. Only drug discontinuation will be effective. May cause urinary incontinence, hernia or cough syncope. A cause for cough other than and unveiled by the drug (e.g. asthma, lung cancer) should be looked for carefully. With most drugs quoted under the present pattern, cough was lone. Cough may be the annunciating or presenting feature of drug-induced ILD, particularly during methotrexate or amiodarone pulmonary toxicity (PMID: 23097577) Patients may experience the cough syncope
