Eosinophils and childhood asthma

Eosinophils are a type of granulocyte with eosinophilic granules in the cytoplasm that play an important role in allergic and parasitic diseases. Eosinophils are important in the pathogenesis of asthma, and many studies have examined the relationship between them. In allergic eosinophilic asthma, eosinophils act not only as important effector cells but also as antigen-presenting cells in allergic inflammatory reactions. In nonallergic eosinophilic asthma, type 2 innate lymphoid cells in the airways play an important role in eosinophil activation. Direct methods, including bronchial biopsy, bronchoalveolar lavage, and the induced sputum test, are used to evaluate eosinophilic inflammatory reactions in patients with asthma, however, because of difficulty with their implementation, they are sometimes replaced by measurements of blood eosinophils, fraction of exhaled nitric oxide, and serum periostin level. However, these tests are less accurate than direct methods. For the treatment of patients with severe eosinophilic asthma, anti-interleukin-5 preparations such as mepolizumab, reslizumab, and benralizumab have recently been introduced and broadened the scope of asthma treatment. Although eosinophils are already known to play an important role in asthma, we expect that further studies will reveal more details of their action.