(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- What do you do for a never-ending cough? New research reveals it may take morphine to quiet the rattle and give those lungs a break.

Researchers from the University of Hull and Castle Hill Hospital in East Yorkshire, England, studied 27 patients who had intractable, or persistent and uncontrollable, cough. The patients were enrolled in an eight-week trial in which they received slow-release morphine sulfate or a placebo for their stubborn cough.

Morphine comes from opium. It is used in medicine as an analgesic, anesthetic and a sedative. According to researchers, opiates have never been studied before for their effect on intractable cough.

Researchers report the patients in the study responded rapidly to slow-release morphine, with a significant 40-percent reduction in their daily cough score levels. The starting dose was five milligrams, twice a day. One-third of the patients increased their dose to 10 milligrams twice a day during the first month; 11 percent did so in the second month; and another 22 percent joined them in the third month. By the end of the eight-week study, two-thirds of the patients were on a dose of 10 milligrams, twice a day.

Alyn H. Morice, M.D., who led the study, reports, "Although acute cough is benign and self-limiting, chronic persistent cough can have a devastating effect on the quality of life of sufferers." He and his colleagues conclude, "We believe that the risk-benefit risk ratio makes low dose morphine sulfate a credible therapeutic option in patients in chronic cough who fail with specific treatment."

The most common side effects of the treatment were constipation and drowsiness.

SOURCE: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 2007;175:312-315