Clinical characteristics in adult patients with somatic cough syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: The data in regard of the clinical characteristics and diagnosis of somatic cough syndrome in adults were limited. The aim of this study was to fill that gap. METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of patients with somatic cough syndrome. We described clinical characteristics of adult patients with somatic cough syndrome. RESULTS: Twenty-three somatic cough syndrome patients were identified in 543 adult patients with chronic cough. Psychiatric disorder of these patients was identified as anxiety (n = 8), obsessive-compulsive (n = 7), somatoform (n = 6), depression (n = 3), and cognitive bias (n = 1). Twelve patients showed abnormal results of investigations related with common causes of chronic cough, including gastroesophageal reflux, sputum eosinophilia, bronchial hyper-responsiveness, or signs of sinusitis but did not respond to the treatments directed to those conditions. All these patients were ever misdiagnosed as other causes of chronic cough. Compared to 520 non-somatic cough syndrome patients, patients with somatic cough syndrome were younger (32 (29.0-43.0) vs 42.0 (32.0-55.0) years, p = 0.013), longer disease duration (48.0 (19.5-102.0) vs 24.0 (9.0-72.0) months, p = 0.037), more common in dry cough (100% vs 57.6%, p < 0.001), and lower proportion of nocturnal cough (13.0% vs 40.2%, p = 0.009). Common cold (60.9%) was the most common initial trigger of cough and itchy throat (60.9%) was the most common accompanying symptom in patients with somatic cough syndrome. Notably, there were similar distribution in cough triggers and accompanying symptoms between two groups. CONCLUSION: In spite of much higher proportion of dry cough and smaller proportion of nocturnal cough, adult patients with somatic cough syndrome show similar clinical characteristics with other chronic cough patients, in regard of cough triggers, accompanying symptoms as well as abnormal results of investigations, which should be an important reason for misdiagnosis of somatic cough syndrome. Psychiatric disorder should be addressed in clinical management of chronic cough.

A peptide of foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype Asia1 generating a neutralizing antibody response, and an immunostimulatory peptide.

The epitopes of the capsid of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) play important roles in the construction of highly immunogenic subunit vaccines. However few epitopes have been found for FMDV serotype Asia1. In this study we screened for epitopes of the VP1 and VP2 proteins of FMDV serotype Asia1 isolate, YNBS/58. Fragments consisting of amino acids 133-163 of VP1 and amino acids 1-33 of VP2 contained epitopes, and both induced lymphoproliferation in guinea pigs. Only the VP1 fragment induced neutralizing antibodies but the VP2 peptide dramatically increased the neutralizing antibody response induced by the VP1 peptide.