background cigarettes smoking is a risk factor for tuberculosis (tb). associations between smoking and tb disease have been reported, but there are few reports on the influence of smoking on the sputum smear and culture conversion time. this study surveyed the possible association between smoking and sputum smear conversion time among new smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients. patients...

Background: CD163-expressing macrophages are involved in the inflammatory response in asthma. Objective: To assess sputum and serum soluble CD163 (sCD163) and cytokine levels in patients with asthma. Further discussed was the difference between sCD163 and other classic inflammatory mediators. Methods: Sputum was successfully induced in asthma patients (n=85) and healthy controls (n=21). Interle...

Bronchorrhea, defined as watery sputum of 100 ml or more per day, was seen in 18 of 207 patients (8.7 percent) with bronchial asthma during attack. Fifteen bronchorrhea sputum samples were chemically examined using ten parameters: dry weight, albumin, IgA, pH, Na+, Cl-, K+, prostaglandins E and F and histamine, and compared with eight saliva samples and 17 mucoid sputum samples. Bronchorrhea sp...

objective(s) considering fair response to inhaled corticosteroids and reports of severe air way hyper responsiveness in chemical warfare victims (cwv), a role for eosinophilic inflammation (i.e. asthma) was postulated. the objective of this study was to determine the presence of eosinophilic inflammation in cwv by evaluation of sputum cellularity and eosinophil cationic protein (ecp). materials...

Sputum analysis is increasingly used to assess airway inflammation in asthma. The analysis of sputum is currently performed with two techniques, i.e., analysis of selected sputum (plugs) and analysis of entire sputum. To investigate the diagnostic value of these two methods, we compared total and differential cell counts and supernatant eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) in selected and entire s...