Department of Hygiene, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2013;788:161-6. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-6627-3_24.
The aim of this study was to investigate lung function in patients with gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) who present respiratory symptoms suggestive of the possibility of co-morbid asthma. The study encompassed 20 patients (9 women and 11 men; age range from 11 to 68 years) diagnosed with GERD and presenting with chronic cough and other non-specific periodic respiratory complaints. The control group consisted of closely gender and age-matched 20 subjects without any gastrointestinal or respiratory symptoms. All patients and control subjects were tested for lung function, which encompassed spirometric and flow-volume variables. We found that none of the GERD patients had lung function abnormalities characteristic of asthma. There were, however, decreases in forced expired volume in 1 s, forced vital capacity, and in maximal instantaneous forced expiratory flows in the GERD patients compared with the healthy subjects. We conclude that cough accompanying GERD is unlikely to be associated with the presence of co-morbid asthma, but rather suggests a mild airway inflammation developing as a sequel of GERD. The corollary is that chronic cough should prompt physician's attention to consider diagnostic work-up toward the possibility of GERD.
本研究旨在调查伴有提示合并哮喘可能的呼吸症状的胃食管反流病（GERD）患者的肺功能。该研究纳入了 20 例（9 名女性和 11 名男性；年龄范围为 11 至 68 岁）被诊断为 GERD 并伴有慢性咳嗽和其他非特异性周期性呼吸投诉的患者。对照组由 20 名性别和年龄匹配、无胃肠道或呼吸道症状的受试者组成。所有患者和对照受试者均接受了肺功能检查，包括肺活量计和流量-容积变量。我们发现，没有 GERD 患者的肺功能异常具有哮喘特征。然而，与健康受试者相比，GERD 患者的 1 秒用力呼气量、用力肺活量和最大瞬间用力呼气流量均下降。我们得出结论，GERD 伴随的咳嗽不太可能与合并哮喘的存在有关，而是提示 GERD 后继发的轻度气道炎症。其推论是，慢性咳嗽应促使医生注意考虑 GERD 可能性的诊断性检查。
