Comparison of atopic and nonatopic children with chronic cough: Bronchoalveolar lavage cell profile

Chronic cough is a common complaint in children and its relationship with asthma is controversial. The aim of the present study was to determine the pattern of airway inflammation in atopic and nonatopic children with chronic cough, and to investigate whether atopy is a predictive factor for eosinophilic inflammation in cough. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL; three aliquots of 1 ml/kg saline) was performed in the right middle lobe of 24 (11 atopic and 13 nonatopic) children with persistent cough (8 females, 16 males), mean age 4.7 years (range: 1–11). Atopy was defined as an elevated total serum IgE or a positive RAST test. Both atopic and nonatopic children with persistent cough had an increase in total cells/ml in BAL (atopic: median 39 × 104, range: 20–123; nonatopic: median 22 × 104, range: 17–132) compared to nonatopic controls (median 11 × 104, range 9–30). The increases were mainly in neutrophils (atopic: median 17%, range 2.5–88.5%; nonatopic: median 6%, range 1.0–55.0%) compared to controls (median 1.55%, range 0.5–7.0%; atopics vs. controls, P