Empirical treatment of chronic cough--a cost-effectiveness analysis.

摘要: Chronic cough of unknown etiology is often difficult to diagnose, thus, there exists controversy regarding the management such patients. Although ACCP (American College Chest Physicians) statement in 1998 recommended that treatment should follow testing, recent evidence suggests empirical GERD more cost-effective than testing followed by treatment, both chronic and non-cardiac chest pain. In this paper, we evaluated cost-effectiveness managing patients with unexplained building a decision model, compared six most common strategies. The outcome our analysis demonstrates cheapest option, while expensive option shortest time course.