Chronic cough in children is common and frequently mismanaged. In the past, cough
was diagnosed as asthma and inappropriate asthma therapies prescribed and esca-
lated. It has been realized that persistent bacterial bronchitis (PBB) is a common cause
of wet cough and responds to oral antibiotics. The initial definition comprised a history
of chronic wet cough, positive bronchoalveolar (BAL) cultures for a respiratory pathogen
and response to a 2-week course of oral amoxicillin–clavulanic acid. This is now termed
PBB-micro; PBB-clinical eliminates the need for BAL. PBB-extended is PBB-micro or
PBB-clinical but resolution necessitating 4 weeks of antibiotics; and recurrent PBB is
>
3 attacks of PBB-micro or-clinical/year. However, the airway has only a limited range
of responses to chronic inflammation and infection, and neutrophilic airway disease is
seen in many other conditions, such as cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia,
both chronic suppurative lung disease endotypes, whose recognition has led to huge
scientific and clinical advances. There is an urgent need to extend endotyping into PBB,
especially PBB-recurrent. We need to move from associative studies and, in particular,
deploy sophisticated modern –omics technologies and systems biology, rather as has
been done in the context of asthma in U-BIOPRED. In summary, the use of the term
PBB has done signal service in pointing us away from prescribing asthma therapies to
children with infected airways, but we now need to move beyond a simple description to
teasing out underlying endotypes.