J Korean Pediatr Soc.  2003 Dec;46(12):1242-1247.

The Efficacy of Proximal Esophageal 24-hour pH Monitoring in Infants with Chronic Cough

• Kim YH
• Kim JK
• Kim JH
• Lim DH
• Son BK

Abstract

PURPOSE
Gastroesophageal reflux disease(GERD) is known as one of the most common causes of chronic cough, especially in children. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of parameters from proximal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring through its comparison with those of distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring that we generally use for diagnosis of GERD.
METHODS
We performed chest CT scans to find out the cause of chronic cough in infants with no clinical manifestation suggesting GERD. Then, in case that they had air space consolidation in posterior segment of both upper lobes and superior segment of both lower lobes(dependent position), we performed proximal and distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring.
RESULTS
The proximal and distal pH monitoring were performed in 17 infants(male 12; female five). The patients with positive pathologic reflux in proximal esophagus were 15 of 17(88.2%) and in distal esophagus were four of 17(23.5%). Reflux index and the total number of reflux episodes were statistically significantly lower in the proximal than in the distal esophagus(P<0.05). There was no correlation between each parameters of proximal and distal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring.
CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that proximal esophageal 24-hr pH monitoring can be used as a very useful diagnostic tool in infants with chronic cough in which there are suspicions that it resulted from aspiration due to GERD.

Keyword

Chronic cough; Esophageal 24-hour pH monitoring

MeSH Terms

Child
Cough*
Diagnosis
Esophagus
Female
Gastroesophageal Reflux
Humans
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration*
Infant*
Tomography, X-Ray Computed