Assessment of the effect of pharmacotherapy in common cold/acute @entity3617 - the @entity3617 ( XXXX ).

@entity3617 @entity1 @entity697
BACKGROUND: @entity697 ( @entity697 ) is a highly contagious infection of the airways, presenting mostly in connection with common cold (CC). There is a high variance in duration and course of symptoms which, sooner or later, also may disappear spontaneously and change during the course of the disease. Therefore, assessment of treatment outcome is difficult. METHODS: Composite outcome measures are commonly used to examine the effects of pharmacotherapy in complex diseases. We discuss the features of the @entity3617 ( @entity3617 ) on the basis of the available literature. RESULTS: For the @entity3617 the five most important symptoms of @entity697 are rated by the @entity1 and the physician. Since its introduction in 1996, the @entity3617 has been used in many clinical trials evaluating treatment effects of @entity697 . Its score correlates well with clinical findings. As thorough validation analyses revealed, this applies even more to the @entity3617 subscales "cough domain" and "sputum domain". CONCLUSION: The validated @entity3617 appears to be a reliable tool to assess therapeutic effects in CC/ @entity697 . The @entity3617 and its subscales are recommended as outcome measures for future drug trials in CC/ @entity697 , but also help physicians to focus their consultation in @entity1 with CC/ @entity697 .
