Underestimation of airway luminal eosinophilia by quantitative sputum cytometry

Table 1 Demographic, clinical and sputum characteristics for those patients whose sputum was viable for analysis (n = 17,693)

	Female, n (%)*	Age, years*	Daily dose ICS^† (mcg)*	On ICS, n (%)*	Daily dose OCS (mg)*	On OCS, n (%)*
	7296 (56.2)	58.0 (30.6)	637.9 (633.1)	13,298 (75.2)	3.4 (16.5)	5713 (32.3)

Viability	Differential cell count, 10⁶/g (%)^#
Viability	Total cells	Neutrophil	Eosinophil	Macrophage	Lymphocyte	Bronchial epithelial
75.0 (0–100)	6.0 (0.1–398.1)	63.3 (0.3–100)	0.8 (0–97)	28.0 (0–99)	0.6 (0–26.7)	0.0 (0–52.0)

ICS Inhaled corticosteroids; ^†Fluticasone equivalent; mcg microgram; OCS oral corticosteroids, mg milligram, g gram. *expressed as mean (standard deviation); #expressed as median (minimum–maximum)

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