The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology
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J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. · Oct 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialPharmacodynamic modeling of cough responses to capsaicin inhalation calls into question the utility of the C5 end point.
Inhaled capsaicin elicits cough reproducibly in human subjects and is widely used in the study of cough and antitussive therapies. However, the traditional end points C2 and C5 (the concentrations of capsaicin inducing at least 2 or 5 coughs, respectively) display extensive overlap between health and disease and therefore might not best reflect clinically relevant mechanisms. ⋯ Nonlinear mixed-effects modeling demonstrates that maximal capsaicin cough responses better discriminate health from disease and predict spontaneous cough frequency and therefore provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying CC.