What does it look like in research and in healthcare practice to treat chronic cough as a standalone disease?
Key Takeaway: Up to 50% of patients presenting with cough continue to have unexplained cough even after thorough investigation. The authors of this paper argue that in these cases cough should be treated as a disease in its own right. Many patients have cough hypersensitivity and impaired cough suppressibility, characteristics associated with measurable alterations in specific areas of the brain.
Why It Matters: Whilst the concept of chronic cough as a standalone disease is gaining ground, many healthcare practitioners still treat cough as a symptom of a comorbid condition. This results in exhaustive - expensive and burdensome - testing to exclude diseases. Many patients remain frustrated and this paper proposes an alternative approach.
Read the publication here
What can chronic cough tell us about asthma control?
Key Takeaway: A review of 286 patient in the Korean Severe Asthma Registry showed that those with chronic cough had poorer asthma control and worse quality-of-life than those without. During follow-up, patients with chronic cough experienced more exacerbations (48.3% vs. 28.6%) than those without chronic cough.
Why It Matters: This study adds to the growing body of evidence that chronic cough is an important signifier of poor asthma control, and that its management could improve quality of life.
Read the publication here
How accurate is the Hyfe cough-monitoring software in real-world conditions?
Key Takeaways: This study of 23 problematic coughers compared cough frequency data collected by the Hyfe cough monitoring software with continuous audio labeled according to a published and validated SOP. A total of 546 hours of continuous audio/monitoring time containing 4,454 cough seconds was captured from all participants with multiple etiologies. The overall sensitivity of Hyfe’s cough-monitoring software was 90.4% (95% CI of 88.3–92.2%). The overall false positive rate was 1.03 false positives per hour (95% CI of 0.84 to 1.24).
Why it matters: There is increasing recognition that cough is highly variable day-to-day and therefore long-term continuous monitoring is critical to evaluate baseline and understand cough trends. The accuracy of Hyfe’s cough-monitoring software using only a wrist-worn watch mic, is one example of a cough monitor that combines high validity with high patient acceptability for long periods of time.
Read the publication here
Plus…
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This month Hyfe announced an exciting partnership with Actigraph, the leader in wearable technology for collecting digital measures in clinical trials. We spoke with Christine Guo to get the lowdown on the collaboration and the novel opportunities for research now that Hyfe’s cough-monitoring software is integrated into Actigraph’s flagship product.
Read the interview here
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Hyfe will be at the 4th European Bronchiectasis Workshop in Paris from 20th-22nd February. Catch our Digital Health Lead, Dr Mindaugas Galvosas presenting on the potential for continuous cough monitoring as a biomarker for bronchiectasis therapy assessment.
