A large subgroup of mild-to-moderate asthma is persistently noneosinophilic.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale

Airway eosinophilia is typical of asthma, and many controller treatments target eosinophilic disease. Asthma is clinically heterogeneous, however, and a subgroup of people with asthma do not have airway eosinophilia. The size of this subgroup is uncertain because prior studies have not examined repeated measures of sputum cytology to determine when people with asthma have intermittent versus persistent sputum eosinophila and when they are persistently noneosinophilic.

Objectives

To determine the prevalence and clinical characteristics of the noneosinophilic asthma phenotype.

Methods

We analyzed sputum cytology data from 995 subjects with asthma enrolled in clinical trials in the Asthma Clinical Research Network where they had undergone sputum induction and m

SUBMITTER: McGrath KW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3326288 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature