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If you cough more than a few teaspoons of blood or if you’ve been coughing blood for more than a week, then you should go to the ER immediately.
If you notice more than a few teaspoons of blood while coughing or you have been coughing blood for more than a week, you should immediately go to the ER. Also, if you notice these symptoms, you should call the ER right away.
- Chest pain
- Blood in the urine or stools
- Dizziness or light-headedness
- Shortness of breath
- Fever
- Rapid or severe weight loss
Coughing up blood could be a sign of a serious medical condition. If left untreated, the underlying causes may aggravate and lead to other complications.
What are the different stages of hemoptysis?
Hemoptysis is divided into different types based on the blood amount coughed up over 24 hours.
The three main types of hemoptysis include:
- Scant or mild hemoptysis: Coughing up less than 20 mL or less than a tablespoon indicates mild hemoptysis.
- Non–life-threatening or nonmassive hemoptysis: Also known as moderate or submassive hemoptysis, this condition refers to when there is coughing up of blood between 20 and 200 mL (about a cup) of blood.
- Life-threatening or massive hemoptysis: Refers to a condition where you cough up about 100 mL to over 600 mL, or about a pint of blood.
Why do you cough up blood?
Coughing up blood or hemoptysis can have many underlying causes. Reasons range from mild irritation of the throat to severe lung cancer.
Some of the common causes of hemoptysis include:
- Chronic cough due to smoking, constant throat irritation, and fibers such as dander and cotton
- Bronchiectasis (damaged airways), due to cystic fibrosis
- Pneumonia
- Tuberculosis
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Bronchitis, either short term (acute) or long term (chronic)
- Lung cancer
Other rare causes of hemoptysis include:
- Congestive heart failure because of mitral stenosis
- A crack or cocaine use
- Foreign objects lodged in the airways
- Inflammatory or autoimmune conditions such as:
- Lupus
- Granulomatosis with polyangiitis
- Microscopic polyangiitis (a condition that can damage the blood vessels)
- Churg–Strauss syndrome (a disorder marked by blood vessel inflammation)
- Goodpasture disease (a life-threatening autoimmune disorder that attacks tissues in the lungs and kidneys)
- Behcet disease (rare disorder leading to blood vessel inflammation throughout the body)
- Lung abscess
- Benign lung tumors
- Parasitic infection of the lung
- Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (rare vascular anomalies of the lungs)
- Pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung)
- An injury like a gunshot wound or car accident
- Use of anticoagulants (blood thinners)
- Endometriosis
- Hughes–Stovin syndrome (consists of deep vein thrombosis)
- Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (an inherited disorder that causes abnormal connections between arteries and veins)
- Sarcoidosis (abnormal collections of inflammatory cells that form lumps known as granulomata)
In some cases, while doctors may not diagnose the exact cause of hemoptysis, the condition may go away within six months.
What other conditions can cause cough in the blood?
You can cough up blood when there is an issue with the respiratory tract (hemoptysis).
Coughing blood can occur in these conditions:
- Pseudohemoptysis: Refers to a condition where the blood comes from the upper digestive tract. Diagnosis is the only way to differentiate between hemoptysis and pseudohemoptysis.
- Hematemesis: Refers to vomiting ground coffee–like material mixed with a bit of food.