Total and differential BAL fluid cell counts for the four groups of animals at days 3, 7 and 14
| Day 3 | Day 7 | Day 14 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CTRL | BLM | CTRL | CTRLdex | BLM | BLMdex | CTRL | CTRLdex | BLM | BLMdex | |
| CTRL=control with saline; BLM=bleomycin with saline; CTRLdex=control with dexamethasone; BLMdex=bleomycin with dexamethasone. | ||||||||||
| *p<0.05 (Student’s t test) v appropriate control group. | ||||||||||
| All groups consisted of six animals except CTRL at day 7 (n=3) and CTRLdex at day 7 (n=5). | ||||||||||
| No of cells/ml BAL fluid (×104) | 5.2 (1.0) | 26.8 (5.7)* | 10.0 (3.0) | 5.5 (1.3) | 10.0 (3.8) | 7.3 (2.8) | 5.8 (1.3) | 4.8 (0.6) | 10.4 (2.0)* | 7.2 (1.4) |
| % neutrophils | 4.1 (2.9) | 47.0 (5.2)* | 1.6 (0.7) | 1.0 (0.4) | 24.4 (8.6) | 15.7 (7.4) | 0.7 (0.3) | 1.0 (0.2) | 2.0 (1.0) | 5.6 (2.1) |
| % macrophages | 95.1 (2.9) | 46.9 (6.8)* | 98.3 (0.6) | 98.3 (0.5) | 73.2 (9.3) | 81.1 (8.3)* | 99.0 (0.4) | 98.9 (0.3) | 97.1 (1.1) | 93.6 (2.1)* |
| % lymphocytes | 0.9 (0.3) | 6.1 (1.9) | 0.1 (0.1) | 0.7 (0.2) | 2.4 (0.9) | 3.1 (1.1) | 0.3 (0.1) | 0.1 (0.1) | 1.0 (0.5) | 0.9 (0.3)* |