Clinical judgement of airway inflammation versus sputum cell counts in patients with asthma

The inflammatory component of asthma is usually assessed indirectly by symptoms and spirometry, these may be inaccurate. It can now be assessed directly and reliably by the examination of sputum cell counts. There is no information on how clinical assessment of the presence and type of airway inflammation compares with actual measurements. In this single-centre observational study, sputum was collected from 76 consecutive adults with asthma …