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