Figures & data
Table 1. Results given as stated. FeNO, sputum IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-8, IL-13, IL-17, IL-25, IL-33, LTE4, PGD2, TNF-α, blood eosinophils, blood neutrophils, sputum eosinophils, and sputum neutrophils did not conform to a normal distribution, therefore for these values the geometric mean (confidence interval in brackets) is presented. P-values listed for Kruskal-Wallis test comparisons between the endotype groups and the control group. SD – standard deviation; FeNO – fractional exhaled nitric oxide; ppb – parts per billion; np – not performable. Fixed airway obstruction is defined as a post-bronchodilator FEV1 absolute change <200 mL or a post-bronchodilator FEV1 increase <12%.
Table 2. Summary of the different cytokine expression patterns, clustered on the basis of a higher or lower sputum concentration observed in each endotype subgroup of the study. “+” represents a particularly high sputum concentration, while “-” represents a not particularly high/particularly low sputum concentration. Both these cut-offs need to be more precisely defined by further investigation. TNF-α: Tumour Necrosis Factor-α.