ObjectiveTo investigate the diagnostic value of bronchial provocation test in patients with chronic cough. MethodsA total of 550 chronic cough patients were selected in the 452nd Military Hospital from March 2011 to February 2012. These patients all underwent the basic lung function test and the bronchial provocation test (BPT) to acetylcholine so as to assess the bronchial hyper-reactivity by inhaling methacholine. The diagnostic value of BPT was then evaluated. ResultsAll included patients had normal lung function. There were 267 patients (48.5%) who showed positive results in BPT, of whom, 236 BPT-positive patients were finally diagnosed as cough variant asthma. After regular treatment, the cough symptoms were well controlled. ConclusionCough variant asthma is one of the main causes of chronic cough. The BPT is an important method of aiding the diagnosis of cough variant asthma which helps early diagnosis of it.
ObjectiveTo systematically review the association between the IL-6 gene -634G/C polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer. MethodsDatabases including the PubMed, EMbase, CNKI and WanFang Data were searched from inception to October 2015 to collect case-control studies about the correlation between the IL-6 gene -634G/C polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software. ResultsA total of 12 case-control studies concerning 3 657 lung cancer cases and 4 100 controls from 11 articles were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that there was no significant association between the -634G/C polymorphism and the risk of lung cancer (GG+GC vs. CC: OR=1.11, 95%CI 0.89 to 1.39, P=0.37; GG vs. CC+GC: OR=1.17, 95%CI 0.88 to 1.55, P=0.27; GG vs. CC: OR=1.27, 95%CI 0.93 to 1.72, P=0.13; GC vs. CC: OR=1.12, 95%CI 0.89 to 1.40, P=0.33; G vs. C: OR=1.08, 95%CI 0.89 to 1.30, P=0.43). ConclusionIL-6 gene -634G/C polymorphism may not be a risk factor of lung cancer. Due to the limited quality and quantity of included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.