Infiltrado celular en pacientes asmáticos y su relación con la severidad del asma.

Cellular infiltrate to asthmatic patients and its relationship with the severity disease degree.Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways, which involves many types of cells and cellelements. The induced sputum analysis is a noninvasive, valid, and reproducible method forevaluating airways inflammation. The aim of this research is characterized the cellular infiltrate of theairways of asthmatic patients in order to determine their relationship with the severity degree. A totalof 21 asthmatic patients (11 mild, 7 moderate and 3 severe) were induced to produce a sputumsample with inhalations of hypertonic saline solution in increasing concentrations for 7 min. Eachpatient previously had a spirometric evaluation and was provided a bronchodilator. After the samplewas obtained, a portion viscous was fixed and dispersed in a solution of dithiothreitolparaformaldehyde.The total cellular count (TCC) and differential cellular count (DCC) wasestablished. Was found an increased in TCC as increased the asthma’s severity. To major obstructionof the airways, just as to make evident a decreased to the peak flow, the neutrophil count wasincreased (p= 0,039), existing a direct correlation between the raise neutrophil count and theobstruction. On the other hand, an inverse relation was found between the percentage ofmacrophages and the asthma’s severity (mild: p=0.002, moderate: p= 0.030, severe: p: 0.46). Inreference to the eosinophils, it was not found a direct relation with the severity of the asthma (mild: p=0.34, moderate: p= 0.10, severe: p= 0.30). In respect to the lymphocytes, the count diminished as theasthma’s severity increased (mild: p=0.000, moderate: p= 0.000, severe: p: 0.020). We conclude thatthere is a direct correlation between neutrophils and obstruction, a diminished lymphocytes andmacrophages count as increased the asthma`s severity and was not found a direct relation betweeneosinophils and the severity to disease.