"Ours is the first study which proves morphine can be effective in chronic cough," said study author Dr Alyn H. Morice, a professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Hull, in East Yorkshire.

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"We are also able to quantify its effect for the first time," he said. "Two-thirds of patients will respond to the low dose we use."

The study findings are published in the February issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In the study, Morice and his colleagues evaluated 27 adults - 18 women and nine men - who were being treated at a hospital cough clinic. All had a persistent cough for more than three months; the average age was 55.

Conditions such as lung disease were ruled out. Then the researchers gave the patients either 5 milligrams of slow-release morphine or a placebo twice daily for four weeks; the participants didn't know which therapy they were taking.

The coughers returned to the clinic three times and rated their cough using a commonly used questionnaire that assigns a score based on physical, social and psychological effects of the cough. They were told not to use any other cough products during the study.

Then, 18 of the 27 people decided to continue in a three-month extension of the study, with most increasing their morphine dose to 10 milligrams twice a day.

At the study's end, similar improvements in cough were noted at both doses, Morice found.

"Mankind has been using morphine for thousands of years," he said. "It is very safe. Constipation is the only side effect which we encounter with any frequency."

Forty percent of those taking the morphine reported constipation; 25 percent complained of drowsiness.

Chronic cough is not just a nuisance, said Dr Chester Griffiths, an ear-nose-throat specialist and vice chief of staff at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Centre and Orthopaedic Hospital, in Santa Monica, California.

Griffiths emphasized it's important to first rule out other underlying reasons for a chronic cough, such as allergies or asthma. "When you have ruled out everything else, you have to suppress it because the cough can cause complications," he said.

And the morphine in the study did suppress the cough, he said. – (HealthDayNews)

February 2007
 

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