ICD-10 Diagnostic Coding Patterns and Clinical Correlates in Refractory Chronic Cough: Analysis from the Korean Chronic Cough Registry
- PMID: 40684403
- DOI: 10.1007/s00408-025-00836-0
ICD-10 Diagnostic Coding Patterns and Clinical Correlates in Refractory Chronic Cough: Analysis from the Korean Chronic Cough Registry
Abstract
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system plays a key role in health data classification but currently lacks a specific code for refractory chronic cough (RCC). This study analyzed ICD-10 coding patterns among 331 RCC patients enrolled in the Korean Chronic Cough Registry. Each patient had a median of 3 [IQR: 2-4] ICD-10 codes at their most recent outpatient visit. The most frequently assigned primary code was R05 (Cough), recorded in 80.4% of cases. Patients with R05 as their primary code tended to have fewer identifiable etiologies but reported more cough hypersensitivity symptoms. Additionally, the number of ICD-10 codes correlated with both cough severity and cough-specific quality-of-life impairment. In a pooled analysis including RCC and non-RCC cases, the R05 code showed high specificity (80.5%) but low sensitivity (25.8%) for RCC. These findings support the need for a dedicated ICD code to accurately capture RCC in clinical and epidemiological contexts.
Keywords: Cough reflex hypersensitivity; Disease classification; ICD-10 coding; Refractory chronic cough.
© 2025. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Conflict of interest statement
Declarations. Conflict of interest: AHM has received consulting fees from Bayer, Bellus, GSK, Merck, NeRRe, Shionogi, and Trevi; lecture fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck, and Chiesi; and grant support from Bayer, Bellus, GSK, Merck, Nocion, Philips, NeRRe, Shionogi, and Trevi. He is a founder and CEO of Tussogenics Ltd. WJS declares grants from Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., Daewoong Pharmaceutical, and AstraZeneca, consulting fees from Merck, Bellus, AstraZeneca, Shionogi, and GSK, and lecture fees from Thermo Fischer/Immunotek, Celltrion, Merck, AstraZeneca, GSK, Sanofi, and Novartis. Other authors have none to declare.
References
-
- Song WJ, Chang YS, Faruqi S, Kim JY, Kang MG, Kim S, Jo EJ, Kim MH, Plevkova J, Park HW, Cho SH, Morice AH (2015) The global epidemiology of chronic cough in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur Respir J 45(5):1479–1481 - PubMed
-
- French CL, Irwin RS, Curley FJ, Krikorian CJ (1998) Impact of chronic cough on quality of life. Arch Intern Med 158(15):1657–1661 - PubMed
-
- Morice AH, Millqvist E, Bieksiene K et al (2020) ERS guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of chronic cough in adults and children. Eur Respir J 55(1):1901136
-
- McGarvey L, Gibson PG (2019) What is chronic cough? Terminology. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract 7(6):1711–1714 - PubMed
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical