TY - JOUR T1 - Validation of a small cough detector JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00279-2022 SP - 00279-2022 AU - Manuel Kuhn AU - Elif Nalbant AU - Dario Kohlbrenner AU - Mitja Alge AU - Laura Kuett AU - Alexandra Arvaji AU - Noriane A. Sievi AU - Erich W. Russi AU - Christian F. Clarenbach Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/early/2022/10/13/23120541.00279-2022.abstract N2 - Research question The assessment of cough frequency in clinical practice relies predominantly on the patient's history. Currently, objective evaluation of cough is feasible with bulky equipment during a brief time (i.e., hours up to one day). Thus, monitoring of cough has been rarely performed outside clinical studies. We developed a small wearable cough detector (SIVA-P3) that uses deep neural networks for the automatic counting of coughs. This study examined the performance of the SIVA-P3 in an outpatient setting.Methods We recorded cough epochs with SIVA-P3 over eight consecutive days in patients suffering from chronic cough. During the first 24 h, the detector was validated against cough events counted by trained human listeners. The wearing comfort and the device usage were assessed by a questionnaire.Results In total, 27 participants (50±14 years) with either chronic unexplained cough (n=12), COPD (n=4), asthma (n=5) or interstitial lung disease (n=6) were studied. During the daytime, the sensitivity of SIVA-P3 cough detection was 88.5±2.49%, and the specificity was 99.97±0.01%. During the night-time, the sensitivity was 84.15±5.04% and the specificity was 99.97±0.02%. The wearing comfort and usage of the device was rated as very high by most participants.Conclusion SIVA-P3 enables automatic continuous cough monitoring in an outpatient setting for objective assessment of cough over days and weeks. It shows comparable or higher sensitivity than other devices with fully automatic cough counting. Thanks to its wearing comfort and the high performance for cough detection, it has the potential for being used in routine clinical practice.FootnotesThis manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.Conflict of Interest: E. Nalbant has received consulting fees from Siva Health AGConflict of Interest: M. Alge is employed by and owns shares in SIVA Health AG.Conflict of Interest: L. Kuett is employed by SIVA Health AGConflict of Interest: N. A. Sievi, A. Arvaij, D. Kohlbrenner and M. Kuhn have no conflicts of interestsConflict of Interest: E. W. Russi has received consulting fees from Siva Health AG-. He participates in the ESTxENDS Trial (study supported by SNF, University of Bern) and is a participant in the Data and Safety Monitoring BoardConflict of Interest: C.F. Clarenbach reports consulting fees from GSK, Novartis, Vifor, Boehringer Ingelheim, Astra Zeneca, Sanofi, Vifor and Daiichi Sanko outside the submitted work. He reports payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations, speakers bureaus, manuscript writing or educational events from GSK, Novartis, Vifor, Boehringer Ingelheim, Astra Zeneca, Sanofi and Vifor. ER -