CAUSES OF ACUTE AND CHRONIC BRONCHITIS, CLINIC, TREATMENT AND PREVENTION

Abstract

An acute cough is one of the most common reasons for seeking outpatient medical care, and the most common diagnosis in these cases is acute bronchitis (AB). Thus, in the USA, out of 30 million patients who consulted a general practitioner for cough in 1997, almost half were diagnosed with OB [1]. In this case, usually (in 70–90% of cases) the diagnosis of OB is associated by a doctor with the need to prescribe antibacterial therapy (ABT). And although in recent years in a number of countries (in particular, in the USA), the scale of unjustified “antibiotic aggression” has decreased somewhat - from 70–75 to 55–60%, at the same time, the frequency of prescription of broad-spectrum antibiotics has increased from 20 to 60% [2] .