Inflammation of small airways in asthma☆,☆☆,★,★★
Section snippets
Subjects
Lung tissue was obtained from 16 subjects selected from a group of 108 patients who entered the St. Paul's Hospital Lung Study between 1991 and 1995, for which ethical approval was obtained. This ongoing study of lung structure and function is based on a prospective study of pulmonary function in patients requiring lung resection for treatment of carcinoma. Lung function was measured in the immediate preoperative period. A clinical diagnosis of asthma was made in six of these 108 patients in
Results
Table I provides the pulmonary function data for all of the patients, showing that both the asthmatic and control groups had approximate 40 pack-year histories of smoking and were well matched for age, sex, and lung function.
Empty Cell Patients with asthma (n = 6) Nonasthmatic subjects (n = 10) Age (yr) 55.0 ± 15.5 57.9 ± 14.4 Sex (M:F) 4:2 6:4 Cigarettes (pack-years) 40.8 ± 31.9 41.9 ± 26.8 TLC (% predicted) 103.9 ± 1.9 107.0 ± 10.2 FVC
Discussion
This study demonstrates an increase in the number of T lymphocytes and eosinophils in the airways of patients with asthma compared with nonasthmatic control subjects matched for age, sex, smoking history, lung function, and airway size. The presence of these inflammatory cells in larger airways is consistent with the increased numbers of T lymphocytes and eosinophils reported from bronchoscopic biopsy specimens of asthmatic airways.8, 9, 14, 16 The observed differences in inflammatory cells
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2022, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In PracticeCitation Excerpt :Our data also suggest that in asthma, airway eosinophilic inflammation is closely associated with SAD. This important association confirms the pathological findings of previous studies on patients with asthma, which demonstrated that the small airways were predominantly infiltrated with activated eosinophils compared with the large airways.31,32 This finding also emphasizes that targeting eosinophilic airway inflammation should be a mainstream treating strategy of SAD in asthma as we observed that anti-T2 biological therapy substantially improves SAD.33
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From athe Meakins-Christie Laboratories, McGill University, Montreal; and bPulmonary Research Laboratory, University of British Columbia, St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver.
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Supported by Respiratory Health Network Centre of Excellence and MRC Grant 7246.
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Reprint requests: Qutayba Hamid, Meakins-Christie Laboratories, McGill University, 3626 St. Urbain St., Montreal, QC H2X 2P2, Canada.
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