Retrospective Study of Factors Potentially Influencing Occurrence of Cough in Slovak Patients with Sarcoidosis

Abstract

Introduction. Sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disease of unknown aetiology, commonly involving the lungs.  Cough is a frequent and troublesome symptom of sarcoidosis that reduces patients’ quality of life. Aim. Retrospective analysis of different factors—smoking history, Scadding stage, results of lung function testing, calcium metabolism, endobronchial finding, CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and other sarcoidosis symptoms in relationship to presence/absence of cough in sarcoidosis patients. Methods. We retrospectively studied sarcoidosis patients diagnosed at the Clinic of Pneumology and Phthisiology of Martin University Hospital between 1998 and 2018. Patients with a history of cough-relevant comorbidities were excluded from the study. GraphPad Prism 7.0 software was used to perform statistical analysis. Results. 101 sarcoidosis patients were included to the study: 65 patients reporting from cough and 36 without cough. The cough was slightly more frequent in nonsmokers (p=0.166) and in women (p=0.688). Cough was associated with dyspnoea (p=0.0007), fever (p=0.0324), and chest pain (p=0.0206) and did not associate with arthralgia (p=0.317) and erythema nodosum (p=0.505). Patients with cough had significantly a lower average value of calciuria (p=0.0014) and lower MEF25 (p=0.0304), MEF50 (p=0.0061), FEV1 (p=0.0025), and FVC (p=0.0025) in % of predicted values, and more often positive endobronchial finding (p=0.0206), compared to patients without cough. Calcemia, FEV1/FVC, DLCO, and CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio in BALF and occurrence of cough did not differ between different stages of the disease. Conclusions. We found significant differences between sarcoidosis patients with/without cough regarding symptoms, results of lung function tests, endobronchial finding, and calcium metabolism. Further research is needed to understand the etiopathogenesis of cough in sarcoidosis patients.