Investigating the Safety of Capsaicin Cough Challenge in Severe Asthma

Asthma is a clinical syndrome which manifests symptoms of variable wheezes, cough and breathlessness. Our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying asthma include airway inflammation, remodelling and hyper‐responsiveness but evidence is emerging suggesting cough reflex hypersensitivity may be an independent factor [1]. Cough is one of the most common symptoms in asthma and is associated with increased severity and poor prognosis [2, 3], yet tools commonly used to evaluate asthma in clinical studies including the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) do not fully capture cough‐related morbidity [4].