Chest
Clinical InvestigationsCOPDThe Cellular Composition and Macrophage Phenotype in Induced Sputum in Smokers and Ex-Smokers With COPD
Section snippets
Subjects
In this prospective study, 38 patients with COPD were included. The diagnosis of COPD was established according to the standards of the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease.1 We managed to obtain IS samples from 34 patients. The clinical characteristics of the population under study are presented in Table 1. Patients who had ceased smoking at least 1 year prior to entering the study were included in the group of ex-smokers. None of the subjects showed signs of infection during
Results
There were no significant differences in the severity of COPD, the median FEV1, median FVC, and median arterial blood gas levels in the two investigated groups (Table 2). In both groups, the pulmonary function parameters (ie, FEV1, FVC, and maximal expiratory flow at 50% of vital capacity), expressed as percent predicted values, correlated adversely with cigarette consumption, expressed as the number of pack-years. There was also a positive correlation between cigarette consumption and arterial
Discussion
This study showed that there are no significant differences in the cellular profile of IS samples between patients with COPD who are active smokers and those who have ceased smoking. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first comparison between these groups of patients. In the majority of studies on IS samples from patients with COPD, what was compared was the sputum samples received from healthy subjects or a group of smokers with those from nonsmokers. There have been few studies of the
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