XII AIST 2018 Conference: “The thousand faces of cough: clinical and therapeutic updates”

This paper summarizes the presentations submitted for publication of the 12(th) AIST National Congress (Associazione Italiana Studio Tosse/Italian Association for Cough Study) entitled “The thousand facets of cough. A clinical and therapeutic update”, which occurred last February 2(nd)-3(rd), 2018 in Bologna (Italy). It summarizes the contributions from leading experts of the sector, who, as in the previous editions, also this year have analyzed a problem too often underestimated which still has many dark sides as regards both the diagnosis and the therapy of cough. The Scientific Committee has chosen topics that had less space in previous editions and these are topical subjects representing a concrete opportunity for learning and comparison of opinions, as well as indispensable elements for the correct management of the symptoms. Hereby we report the abstracts of the works submitted for publication in this Meeting report. The main topics have covered Cough relationship with nerve vagus, ATP, air pollution, GERD, imaging, COPD, pediatric and therapy. Of particular interest it is the preliminary data on cough hydration ratio that shows a highly significant correlation between dehydration and cough. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40248-018-0130-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.