[Peripheral blood eosinophilia in patients with bronchial asthma before and after bronchial provocation]

The study was set up in order to check the usefulness of peripheral blood eosinophilia in asthma diagnosis and asthma therapy monitoring. Twenty mild asthmatics entered the study--ten atopic and ten nonatopic. Eosinophilia was estimated twice: on the day of admission and twenty four hours after bronchial provocation. Bronchial hyperreactivity was measured on both occasions. We showed, that there was no difference in eosinophilia between atopic and nonatopic subjects before provocation but the difference was significant 24 hrs after provocation. In both groups of asthmatics eosinophilia correlated with bronchial hyperreactivity before and after provocation. We concluded, that eosinophilia is an easy and valuable parameter in monitoring the degree of allergic inflammation in asthmatics.