Guidelines of the German Respiratory Society for Diagnosis and Treatment of Adults Suffering from Acute, Subacute and Chronic Cough

The present 2019 S2k consensus guideline of the German Respiratory Society was written - in contrast to the predecessor more general S3 guidelines from 2004 and 2010 for pneumologists, since 2014 the German College of General Practitioners and Family Physicians (DEGAM) published his own cough guidelines. The guideline contains 48 recommendations agreed by consensus and 16 statements, which are explained in the background text in the following nine chapters: epidemiology, physiology, classification, acute, subacute or chronic cough, diagnostics and therapy; an extra chapter was dedicated to chronic idiopathic cough. Further emphasis of the guideline is the physiology of cough in anticipation of the introduction of new drugs, as well as detailed treatises on cough triggered by affections in the upper respiratory tract or by gastroesophageal reflux. The guideline should provide the pneumologist with the latest knowledge from neighboring disciplines required for diagnosis and therapy of cough. The clinical chapters also contain a short summary, practical recommendations and a bibliography of their own. Three new, simplified algorithms for acute, subacute and chronic cough round off the Diagnostics chapter.