ABSTRACT
The frequency and/or severity of the common asthma symptoms of wheeze,
chest tightness, and cough are main components of the classification of asthma severity in adults (1) and children (2). Each symptom is however
not diagnostic for asthma and the recent British Asthma guidelines caution
against the use of any symptom in isolation (3). As cough is the most com-
mon symptom presenting to general practitioners (4) and asthma a com-
mon chronic disorder, there is high potential for a chance overlap
between cough and asthma, without there being a clear causal link between
the two conditions. Nevertheless cough is a prominent symptom in many
people with asthma and good control of asthma symptoms is a component of effective asthma management. This chapter reviews current evidence on
the use of the symptom of cough and objective cough indices as an indicator
of asthma control. Whether isolated cough represents asthma is beyond the
scope of this chapter and reviews are available elsewhere (5-7).
