Figure 1.
(A) Distribution of submucosal total mast cells (MCs) (tryptase-positive MCTot; solid circles/blue lines show median and 25th–75th percentiles) and chymase-positive MCs (MCTC; shaded circles/red lines show median and 25th–75th percentiles) evaluated by immunostaining. Open circles in the severe asthma group represent subjects who are not on systemic corticosteroid therapy. (B) Increase in MCTC/MCTot with increasing asthma severity. The groups were compared using Kruskal/Wallis tests (overall P values) and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests (trend P values). Marked are intergroup differences that remained significant after Bonferroni correction (P ≤ 0.007). ICS = inhaled corticosteroid.