Small airway dysfunction in patients with cough variant asthma: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Cough variant asthma (CVA) is one of the special populations of asthma. The aim of the study was to compare small airways, the degree of bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) and airway inflammatory subtypes between CVA and classic asthma (CA), and investigate the relationship between these markers to determine the accuracy as indicators of CVA.

Methods: A total of 825 asthmatic patients participated in the study and 614 were included.

Blood cell for the differentiation of airway inflammatory phenotypes in COPD exacerbations.

Background: Measurement of sputum is frequently used to define airway inflammatory subtypes. The venous blood cell is a reliable and simple biomarker, may be used as an alternative procedure to reflect the subtypes. For the aim of verifying the hypothesis that venous blood cell can quantify sputum inflammatory cell to access the airway subtypes in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease of acute exacerbations (AECOPD) and to ascertain the accuracy of the blood cell biomarker.

A retrospective study of clinical features of cough variant asthma in Chinese adults.

Background: Clinical features of cough variant asthma (CVA) in Chinese adults are largely uncertain.

Methods: A total of 303 patients newly diagnosed as uncontrolled asthma (symptom control and future risk of adverse outcomes), including 175 CVA and 128 classic asthma (CA), were enrolled in this retrospective survey. Clinical features including basic characteristics, pulmonary function, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and cell counts of induced sputum, were compared retrospectively.

Association between fractional exhaled nitric oxide, sputum induction and peripheral blood eosinophil in uncontrolled asthma.

Background: The fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and blood eosinophils are biomarkers of eosinophilic airway inflammation used in the diagnosis and management of asthma, although induced sputum is the gold standard test for phenotypic asthma. Nevertheless, the clinical application of the correlation between sputum eosinophils, FeNO and blood eosinophils is controversial.

Objective: To investigate the clinical application of the correlation between sputum eosinophils, FeNO and blood eosinophils with uncontrolled asthmatic patients.