The eosinophilic granulocyte count in the respiratory secretions of children with chronic nonspecific respiratory diseases.

We performed cytologic evaluations of 6116 nasal and/or bronchial smears from 4510 patients (average age: 7.6 years; 3 months--17 years) suffering from different kinds of chronic nonspecific respiratory diseases (CNSRD); in 137 children (average age: 4.8 years) undergoing bronchologic examinations under general anesthesia we compared the findings with those for bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL).