Assessing the laryngeal cough reflex and the risk of developing pneumonia after stroke: an interhospital comparison

We sought to evaluate the efficacy of testing the laryngeal cough reflex in identifying pneumonia risk in acute stroke patients. We performed a prospective study of 400 consecutive acute stroke patients examined using the reflex cough test (RCT) compared with 204 consecutive acute stroke patients from a sister facility examined without using the RCT. The binary end point for the study outcome was the development of pneumonia. Of the 400 patients examined with the RCT, 5 developed pneumonia. Of the 204 patients examined without the RCT, 27 developed pneumonia (P