An Open Label Trial of Azithromycin in Chronic Productive Cough

We have noticed a group of patients presenting with a longstanding wet cough which has often been treated as asthma. The cough is productive of sputum which frequently contains bacteria, but does not resolve with standard antibiotic treatment. A very similar cough is seen in subjects who smoke, have exposure to airbourne dusts or chemicals or have a condition known as bronchiectasis, but these problems have already been excluded. We have found that prolonged treatment with an antibiotic called azithromycin is very effective but using azithromycin in this way is not licensed and there is currently no trial evidence to support its use. This research will evaluate the clinical benefit of low dose azithromycin to determine if this is an effective and safe treatment for these patients. It will also involve a detailed investigation of these patients to determine whether they have enough in common to believe we are describing a new condition.