Influence of Age, Past Smoking, and Disease Severity on TLR2, Neutrophilic Inflammation, and MMP-9 Levels in COPD
Table 2
Airway inflammation data. All data are median (q1, q3) unless stated.
COPD
Older healthy control
Younger healthy control
Number of patients where sputum was induced, (%)
64 (93)
28 (97)
22 (100)
0.529
Number of patients with adequate sputum used in analysis, (%)
58 (90)
26 (93)
16 (73)
0.096
Total cell count, /mLa
4.3 (1.7, 6.7),
2.3 (1.4, 3.8),
1.7 (1.1, 3.2)*,
0.005
Viability, %
81 (67, 93)
79 (67, 89)
67 (59, 76)*
0.015
Neutrophils, %
65.0 (43.0, 82.5)
39.6 (27.8, 60.0)*
10.8 (7.8, 28.4) *†
<0.001
Neutrophils, 104/mL
244 (78.4, 599)
79.2 (33.1, 227)*
22.2 (6.8, 41.6) *†
<0.001
Eosinophils, %
1.0 (0.3, 2.8)
0.3 (0.0, 0.5)*
0.1 (0.0, 0.4)*
<0.001
Eosinophils, /mL
5.1 (0.8, 16.7)
0.6 (0.0, 1.6)*
0.0 (0.0, 0.6)*
<0.001
Macrophages, %
28.4 (12.5, 47.5)
49.1 (34.8, 68.8)*
81.3 (64.6, 89.5)*
<0.001
Macrophages, /mL
78.0 (48.6, 139.5)
117.0 (69.1, 161.3)
137.3 (57.5, 194.1)
0.144
Lymphocytes, %
0.3 (0.0, 0.8)
0.8 (0.0, 1.8)*
1.0 (0.0, 1.9)
0.019
Lymphocytes, /mL
0.4 (0.0, 1.7)
1.8 (0.0, 4.2)
1.4 (0.0, 5.1)
0.087
Columnar epithelial cells, %
1.6 (0.5, 2.5)
1.2 (0.3, 2.3)
2.9 (0.4, 6.5)
0.557
Columnar epithelial cells, /mL
5.6 (1.6, 10.4)
2.3 (0.5, 9.8)
4.5 (0.2, 21.1)
0.461
Squamous cells, %
3.5 (1.2, 8.9)
3.6 (2.2, 7.6)
6.7 (3.4, 13.4)
0.135
versus COPD; versus older healthy control.
aWhen sputum volume was small, a cell smear was prepared and total cell count and viability data were not collected.
