How to enter the pediatric airway for bronchoscopy.

Background: Bronchoscopies are performed in childhood for diagnostic reasons (e.g. evaluation of stridor, unexplained cough, possible malformations) and therapeutic reasons (e.

Quantification of the effect of inhaled budesonide on airway inflammation in intermittent asthma by bronchitis index.

The bronchitis index (BI) is a scoring system for the visual quantification of airway inflammation by flexible bronchoscopy. A prospective study was carried out to determine whether patients with intermittent asthma present a considerable visible airway inflammation. Ten steroid-naive patients with intermittent asthma taking only inhaled beta2-agonists were enrolled and received budesonide (800 microg/day) over a period of 4 weeks.

Plasmacytoid monocytes appear in the bronchoalveolar lavage: differences between smokers and nonsmokers.

The primary purpose of this study was to describe the expression pattern of the surface antigens CD68, CD36, 27E10, G16/1, and RM3/1 on bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cells of smokers and nonsmokers. We found a cell type, morphologically similar to lymphocytes, which showed a strong expression of the monocyte markers CD68 and CD36. We therefore recognized these cells as plasmacytoid monocytes (PM).