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June 13, 2026Stroke and Vascular NeurologyOpen Access

Cough reflex testing for dysphagia severity and pneumonia risk after acute stroke: a prospective observational study

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Authors

AJAnne JungBLBendix LabeitSOStephan Oelenberg

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Overview

Prospective observational study assesses cough reflex testing's role in dysphagia severity and pneumonia risk in stroke patients, indicating its clinical value.

Key Points

  • This study aims to evaluate the clinical value of cough reflex testing in determining dysphagia severity and pneumonia risk in acute stroke patients.
  • Conducted a prospective observational study with 395 acute stroke patients admitted to an intensive care unit.
  • Utilized fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing and citric acid cough reflex testing.
  • Applied ordinal and binary logistic regression to analyze associations between cough reflex and clinical outcomes.
  • Cough reflex testing had 75% sensitivity and 55% specificity for silent aspiration and 78% sensitivity and 43% specificity for any aspiration.
  • An absent or weakened cough reflex strongly predicted severe dysphagia and increased aspiration risk (p<0.001).
  • Preserved cough reflex reduced pneumonia risk only in patients with mild dysphagia.

Cite This Study

Jung et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a2cf4aefaef96ed7f056dd6https://doi.org/10.1136/svn-2026-005197
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1Risk Factors for Chest Infection in Acute Stroke2007 · 295 citations
  2. 2Validation of the 3-oz Water Swallow Test for Aspiration Following Stroke1992 · 538 citations
  3. 3Oropharyngeal dysphagia: a narrative review towards an integrated neurogeriatric perspective2025 · 6 citations
  4. 4Electrical pharyngeal stimulation increases substance P level in saliva2016 · 58 citations
  5. 5Cough reflex attenuation and swallowing dysfunction in sub‐acute post‐stroke patients: prevalence, risk factors, and clinical outcome2016 · 31 citations