Objective      To establish a gastro-esophageal regurgitation cough (GERC) scoring system through analyzing and summarize clinical characteristics of chronic cough patients in order to investigate a quick diagnostic method for GERC.       Metho

ds      A total of 202 outpatients with chronic cough from our department during June 2010 to February 2011 were rerolled in this study. The inclusion criterions were cough for over 8 weeks and normal chest X-ray film. These patients were firstly diagnosed as 3 common causes of chronic cough

based on their clinical features

that is

GERC

cough variability asthma (CVA)

and upper airway cough syndrome (UACS). After empiric treatment

all patients were followed up at last 2 to 4 weeks to evaluate the treatment efficiency. The turning point for GERC diagnosis was confirmed according to our scoring system.       Results      In this study

the analysis for clinical features from 122 patients diagnosed as GERC

UACS or CVA showed that there was no significant difference in age

severity and duration of cough among 3 groups. CVA group had significantly higher incidence of rhinitis/sinusitis than GERC group (

P

=0.019)

and GERC group had significantly higher rate of history of stomach illness than UACS group (

P

=0.023). Percentage of hacking cough was higher in GERC group than other groups

that of night-time cough was higher in CVA group than in the other groups (

P

=0.000)

and there was no significant difference between the 2 groups (

P=

0.781). GERC group had significantly higher proportion of reflux symptoms than UACS group (

P

=0.002) and CVA group (

P

=0.007)

and higher proportion of stomach symptoms than UACS group (

P

=0.001) and CVA group (

P

=0.027). But for the symptoms of rhinitis/sinusitis

UACS group and CVA group had higher proportion than GERC group. There were significant difference in GERC scores among the 3 groups (

P

<

0.001). GERC score ≤4 was determined as the turning point for predicting GERC

with a specificity of 83.3% and a sensitivity of 84.0%.       Conclusion      These results suggest that our GERC scoring system can get better cause forecasting for GERC

not relying on esophageal pH electrode monitoring

and our s

ystem can be used as a clinical simple diagnostic strategy for the empirical treatment of GERC.