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NEUTROPHILS, AIRWAY SMOOTH MUSCLE AND COPD
The nature of the airway inflammation in COPD and its relation to function is an important topic for research. The importance of infiltration of airway smooth muscle in asthmatics with mast cells has recently been demonstrated and, in this issue of Thorax, Baraldo and colleagues describe the nature of the inflammatory cells in airway smooth muscle in patients with COPD. They show that smokers with COPD had increased neutrophils and CD8+ cells (characteristically found in COPD) in the airway smooth muscle compared with non-smokers, while smokers with normal lung function had less smooth muscle infiltration with neutrophils. There were no differences between the various groups in the number of mast cells in the smooth muscle. The authors also show that there was a relation between lung function and the number of neutrophils in the airway smooth muscle. This paper suggests that there may …
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