Inhaled corticosteroids in COPD - Author's reply (1)

AUTHORS’ REPLY We would like to thank Dr Hart for his useful comment.We agree that it is important that the absolute numbers of cells are presented when measuring differential cell count in a biological sample. In fact, fig 1 of our paper illustrated the reduction of sputum neutrophils as absolute cell numbers. We thank Dr Hart for the table where the data have been presented as mean absolute cell counts, showing no difference in the absolute number of macrophages after treatment and confirming that the increase in the proportion of sputum macrophages following treatment is attributable to the reduced number of sputum neutrophils. However, the presentation of data as absolute cell numbers did not change the major conclusion of our article that a two month course of treatment with high dose inhaled beclomethasone dipropionate significantly reduces the sputum neutrophil cell count in patients with clinically stable, smoking related COPD