The purpose of this study is to evaluate if office-based injection of a local anesthetic/steroid combination at the area of one superior laryngeal nerve can decrease cough frequency and alleviate symptoms of chronic cough in patients with neurogenic cough.
Neurogenic cough is a chronic cough without a clear cause. It is thought to be related to irritation of a nerve that goes to the larynx (voice box). This can happen after a viral upper respiratory infection. Current treatment uses therapy or medications taken by mouth. Those medications can be sedating and not well tolerated. An alternative approach would be to perform an injection "nerve block", which is commonly done for other nerve disorders such as around the spine. This may help people with neurogenic cough also. We studied this recently in a small group of patients and found that patients had improvement in their cough symptoms (Simpson 2018). It would be helpful to study this in a larger group of patients using more methods of evaluating cough symptom severity.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
50
A unilateral injection of 2 cc of a 1:1 mixture of 0.25% bupivacaine and Kenalog-40 via a 27 gauge needle to the thyrohyoid space (front of neck, just above larynx/voice box) via a 27 gauge needle to the thyrohyoid space (front of neck, just above larynx/voice box) on the side which exhibited most discomfort/tenderness/cough on palpation. If neither side was uncomfortable, the right side will be used.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
RECRUITINGChange in score on the Leicester Cough Questionnaire
The Leicester Cough Questionnaire consists of 19 questions designed to assess the impact of cough on various aspects of a participant's quality of life. Scores are chosen from a Likert scale from 1 to 7, with 1 representing "all of the time" and 7 representing "none of the time." Scores would decrease if symptoms improved.
Time frame: Baseline to 3 months
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