According to a research, premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) may cause chronic cough. However, the findings indicate that PVCs alone causes chronic cough rarely.

Dr. Sebastian M. Stec, from Grochowski Hospital, Warsaw, Poland, and colleagues reported that prior research has linked various arrhythmias with chronic cough, but data from prospective studies have been lacking.

The study evaluated symptomatic PVCs in 120 patients without organic heart disease. Ones that occurred immediately after spontaneous or induced PVC are defined as PVC-associated coughs.

Chronic cough was seen in ten patients. But PVCs were implicated as the sole cause of the cough in just one patient.

PVCs were thought to play a contributing role to the cough in five patients who also had nonasthmatic eosinophilic bronchitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and chronic sinusitis.

There was no temporal relationship of cough episodes with PVCs in the remaining four patients. More over, successful antiarrhythmic therapy did not decrease the frequency of cough episodes.

According to authors, PVC-related cough patients had a more severe perception of arrhythmia symptoms than patients without cough.

After radiofrequency ablation, PVC-related cough was resolved in 4 patients, oral antiarrhythmic therapy in 1 patient, and after spontaneous PVC remission in 1 patient.

PVC may be associated with chronic cough, probably by cardiopulmonary reflex, the authors conclude. Because additional cough-provoking conditions are common in patients with PVC-associated cough, interdisciplinary cooperation is necessary to explain the mechanisms of cough in order to initiate effective treatment.