title: [Causes of chronic cough in children].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study the causes of chronic cough in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective analysis was carried out on the clinical data of 132 children with chronic cough from August 2010 to September 2011.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Several conditions were found to contribute to chronic cough in children, including cough variant asthma (CVA, n=56), upper airway cough syndrome (UACS, n=44), infections/postinfectious cough (IC/PIC, n=22), allergic cough (AC, n=8), gastroesophageal reflux cough (GERC, n=5), and others (n=3). There was significant difference in the distribution of IC/IPC among an infant group (<1 year), a group of young children (>1 year), a group of preschool aged children (>3 years) and a group of school-age children (6-14 years) (χ2=11.638, P=0.001), and the infant group showed a significantly higher prevalence of IC/PIC than the other three age groups (P<0.05). IC/PIC was the main cause of chronic cough in the infant group, while CVA and UACS were the main causes in each of the other groups. A relatively large proportion of AC, CVA and UACS cases had a personal history of allergy, a family history of allergy/asthma and a history of exposure to harmful environments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CVA, UACS, and IC/PIC are main causes of chronic cough in children, varying among different age groups. Children with a personal history of allergy, family history of allergy/asthma and a history of exposure to harmful environment are more vulnerable to AC, CVA and UACS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Anhui Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Hui-Fang
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jia-Hua
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hao-Quan
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003371:Cough / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity / Q000150:complications; D007223:Infant; D007239:Infections / Q000150:complications; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies