Electronic cough recording: How to better reflect the patient experience?

Electronic cough recording is used as an objective measure. Recordings are analysed by averaging the number of coughs, usually over 24 hours or when awake. A more granular analysis based on cough bout frequency, intensity, and duration may be more reflective of patient experience. 20 patients attending the cough clinic were asked how many cough free minutes occured before they felt that a bout had ended. The mean was 15 minutes. We analysed recordings from the VOLCANO-2 study (<ext-link>NCT02993822</ext-link>) using a 15 rolling minute bracket to determine whether the bout was continuing or if no coughs had occurred (relief of cough). The number of coughs in a bout was also assessed (cough intensity). Average cough counting of awake cough frequency showed no showed no significant difference between placebo and active. However, both cough intensity and time spent relieved of cough differentiated the NK1 antagonist orvipitant 30 mg o.d. vs. placebo at early time points. <fig><object-id>erj;64/suppl_68/PA2144/F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><graphic></graphic></fig> Patient reported outcomes LCQ and VAS were more closely correlated with both relief of cough and cough intensity than awake cough frequency. LCQ overall domain score r= -0.18 for cough counting v.s. r= -0.003 for cough intensity and r= 0.24 for relief of cough. These exploratory data show that a granular analysis of cough counting data may more closely reflect the patient experience. An ERS NeuroCOUGH CRC site.