Chinese National Guidelines on Diagnosis and Management of Cough: consensus and controversy

Cough, especially chronic cough, is a common condition in clinical practice. Chronic cough accounts for at least 30% of respiratory specialist visits and significantly interferes with patients’ daily life, and nearly 50% women patients with chronic cough suffer from urinary incontinence (1). The Asthma Workgroup of the Chinese Society of Respiratory Diseases (CSRD) issued The Chinese National Guideline on Diagnosis and Management of Cough (draft) in 2005 (2). The guideline primarily focuses on the etiological diagnosis and management of chronic cough. Since the establishment of the guideline, many clinicians, especially respiratory specialists, have significantly improved their expertise on the diagnosis of chronic cough, which has an important instructive impact on clinical practice. Therefore, the CRSD has revised the 2005 cough guideline to further improve the guideline and better present the progresses achieved both in China and abroad (3,4). The consensus and controversy on the guidelines are discussed in the present review.