Table 3—

Characteristics at maintenance visit according to asthma severity

	Very mild to mild		Moderate to severe
	CS	SS	CS	SS
Clinical parameters
Subjects n	15	16	37	34
Symptoms score	6.0±0.8	5.8±0.9	5.8±0.9	6.3±0.8
Pre BD FEV₁	95.0±12.2	90.0±11.6	76.2 ±15.7*	79.0±16.2*
Asthma treatment
On inhaled steroid	73.3	81.2	100*	100*
On LABA	13.3	12.5	50.0*	47.1*
On antileukotriene	6.7	0	8.1	17.6
On prednisone	0	0	0	2.9
Other asthma medication	0	0	5.4	2.9
On nasal steroid	20.0	25.0	40.5	32.4
Induced sputum
Total cell count ×10⁶·g^−1#	3.0 (0.5–7.0)	3.9 (0.9–23.8)	4.3 (0.6–62.5)	3.1 (0.4–22.7)
Neutrophils^#	37.0 (4.0–72.0)	52.0 (5.0–94.5)	37.0 (5.0–94.5)	40.0 (2.0–96.8)
Eosinophils^#	3.0 (0–44.0)	1.0 (0–4.0)	0.7 (0–53.0)	0.6 (0–2.0)
Eosinophilia ≥3%	53.3	6.7	33.3**	0**

Data are presented as mean±sd (for continuous variables) or % (for dichotomous variables), unless otherwise specified. CS: clinical stategy; SS: sputum strategy; Pre: before use; BD: bronchodilator (salbutamol); FEV₁: forced expiratory volume in one second; LABA: long acting β₂-agonist; ^#: data presented as median (minimum–maximum); *: p-value <0.05 within strategy between severity groups; **: p-value <0.01 within strategy between severity groups.