Chronic Cough in IPF –

More Than Just a Symptom

Chronic cough in IPF affects multiple aspects of patients’ lives.

Not only does cough result in an immediate physical response, but chronic cough may also correspond with shorter survival for those that do not receive a transplant.1

Impacting Quality of Life

IPF is a life-threatening disease and chronic cough associated with it can impact patients both physically and mentally.

2,3,4

While cough results in an array of additional outcomes besides the action of coughing itself,

the actual urge that IPF patients have to cough is not relieved.5

The Patient Voice

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted a meeting with patients, caregivers, and representatives of patients, on their experience with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.3 Below are a few of the quotes published by the FDA in the Voice of the Patient report developed from that meeting.

“And one of the biggest symptoms, really, of that cough is the feeling of — there’s an isolation component to it. He could clear a crowd. We were in line to go to the Red Sox games for the World Series, and the look that people gave him for coughing, that — thinking that he was, you know, a contagious person. People don’t understand the cough of PF.”

“My cough was really so deep that it felt like I broke my ribs, and my ribs became so cramped that I couldn’t even twist [my body].”

“[My cough] comes with exertion … walking up a flight of stairs … putting your clothes on, bending over and tying your shoes, fixing something in the kitchen, moving around.”

“coughing will wipe you out for an entire day. Wake up in the morning and cough so hard that you may actually throw up in your mouth.”

“On my worst days, coughing will wipe you out for an entire day … Physically, you’re exhausted.”

“Sometimes the cough was so violent that he couldn’t stand upright, and if he were in public, he’d have to quickly sit down until he was able to recover and compose himself. He found that having a large cloth with him that he could cough into would help his embarrassment, but it would also help muffle the noise that someone else mentioned. It was one of his most difficult and embarrassing issues.”

References

1. Ryerson C.J., et al.,Respirology, 2011. doi:10.1111/j.1440-1843.2011.01996.x

2. Wakwaya Y, et al., Chest, 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2021.05.071

3. Voice of the Patient Report: “Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis”, March 2015.

4. Bradaia F, et al., Incontinence urinaire a la toux au cours des pneumopathies interstitielles diffuses [Urinary incontinence due to chronic cough in interstitial lung disease]. Rev Mal Respir, 2009; 26: 499–504. 

5. Swigris JJ, et al., Health Qual Life Outcomes, 2005. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-3-61

Trevi Therapeutics New Haven, CT. 

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