28
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Understanding the symptoms of the common cold and influenza

      review-article
      , Professor a , *
      The Lancet. Infectious Diseases
      Elsevier Ltd.

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Summary

          The common cold and influenza (flu) are the most common syndromes of infection in human beings. These diseases are diagnosed on symptomatology, and treatments are mainly symptomatic, yet our understanding of the mechanisms that generate the familiar symptoms is poor compared with the amount of knowledge available on the molecular biology of the viruses involved. New knowledge of the effects of cytokines in human beings now helps to explain some of the symptoms of colds and flu that were previously in the realm of folklore rather than medicine—eg, fever, anorexia, malaise, chilliness, headache, and muscle aches and pains. The mechanisms of symptoms of sore throat, rhinorrhoea, sneezing, nasal congestion, cough, watery eyes, and sinus pain are discussed, since these mechanisms are not dealt with in any detail in standard medical textbooks.

          Related collections

          Most cited references53

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Clinical signs and symptoms predicting influenza infection.

          New antiviral drugs are available for the treatment of influenza type A and type B infections. In clinical practice, antiviral use has rarely been guided by antecedent laboratory diagnosis. Defined clinical predictors of an influenza infection can help guide timely therapy and avoid unnecessary antibiotic use. To examine which clinical signs and symptoms are most predictive of influenza infection in patients with influenza-like illness using a large data set derived from clinical trials of zanamivir. This analysis is a retrospective, pooled analysis of baseline signs and symptoms from phase 2 and 3 clinical trial participants. It was conducted in mainly unvaccinated (mean age, 35 years) adults and adolescents who had influenza-like illness, defined as having fever or feverishness plus at least 2 of the following influenza-like symptoms: headache, myalgia, cough, or sore throat who underwent laboratory testing for influenza. Clinical signs and symptoms were evaluated in statistical models to identify those best predicting laboratory confirmation of influenza. Of 3744 subjects enrolled with baseline influenza-like symptoms, and included in this analysis, 2470 (66%) were confirmed to have influenza. Individuals with influenza were more likely to have cough (93% vs 80%), fever (68% vs 40%), cough and fever together (64% vs 33%), and/or nasal congestion (91% vs 81%) than those without influenza. The best multivariate predictors of influenza infections were cough and fever with a positive predictive value of 79% (P<. 001). The positive predictive value rose with the increase in the temperature at the time of recruitment. When influenza is circulating within the community, patients with an influenza-like illness who have both cough and fever within 48 hours of symptom onset are likely to have influenza and the administration of influenza antiviral therapy may be appropriate to consider. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:3243-3247.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Cytokines and psychopathology: lessons from interferon-alpha.

            Interferon-alpha is a potent inducer of the cytokine network and is notorious for causing behavioral alterations. Studies on interferon-alpha-treated patients reveal at least two distinct syndromes: 1) a mood/cognitive syndrome that appears late during interferon-alpha therapy is responsive to antidepressants and is associated with activation of neuroendocrine pathways and altered serotonin metabolism; and 2) a neurovegetative syndrome characterized by psychomotor slowing, and fatigue that appears early during interferon-alpha treatment is antidepressant nonresponsive and may be mediated by alterations in basal ganglia dopamine metabolism. Findings from interferon-alpha may provide important clues regarding the pathophysiology and treatment of cytokine-induced behavioral changes in medically ill patients, while also potentially modeling the development of neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients without medical disorders.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Computed tomographic study of the common cold.

              Colds are common, but the abnormalities they produce in the nasal passages and sinus cavities have not been well defined. We studied healthy adult volunteers with self-diagnosed colds of 48 to 96 hours' duration and obtained the following data: information on symptoms, computed tomographic (CT) studies of the nasal passages and sinuses, mucosal-transport times, measures of nasal-airway resistance, and viral-culture studies. Thirty-one subjects (mean age, 24 years) had complete evaluations, including CT scans, which were read without knowledge of the clinical data. An additional 79 subjects underwent the same evaluations, except the CT scans. Of the 31 subjects with CT scans, 24 (77 percent) had occlusion of the ethmoid infundibulum; 27 (87 percent) had abnormalities of one or both maxillary-sinus cavities; 20 (65 percent) had abnormalities of the ethmoid sinuses; 10 (32 percent) had abnormalities of the frontal sinuses; and 12 (39 percent) had abnormalities of the sphenoid sinuses. Infraorbital air cells were present in 14 subjects (45 percent), and pneumatization of the middle turbinate (concha bullosa) was noted in 11 subjects (35 percent). Also common were engorged turbinates (in 7 subjects) and thickening of the walls of the nasal passages (in 13). After two weeks, the CT studies were repeated in 14 subjects, none of whom received antibiotics. In 11 of these subjects (79 percent) the abnormalities of the infundibula and sinuses had cleared or markedly improved. Nasal-airway resistance was abnormal in 29 (94 percent) and mucosal transport in 19 (61 percent) of the 31 subjects who had CT scans. Rhinovirus was detected in nasal secretions from 24 (27 percent) of 90 subjects. The common cold is associated with frequent and variable anatomical involvement of the upper airways, including occlusion and abnormalities in the sinus cavities.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Professor
                Journal
                Lancet Infect Dis
                Lancet Infect Dis
                The Lancet. Infectious Diseases
                Elsevier Ltd.
                1473-3099
                1474-4457
                25 October 2005
                November 2005
                25 October 2005
                : 5
                : 11
                : 718-725
                Affiliations
                [a ]Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence to: Professor Ron Eccles, Common Cold Centre, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3US, UK. Tel +44 (0)29 20874099; fax +44 (0)29 20874093 eccles@ 123456cardiff.ac.uk
                Article
                S1473-3099(05)70270-X
                10.1016/S1473-3099(05)70270-X
                7185637
                16253889
                f2603902-c0b3-4b49-b9f1-316eaa6bd2ac
                Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

                Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

                History
                Categories
                Article

                Infectious disease & Microbiology
                Infectious disease & Microbiology

                Comments

                Comment on this article