Table 4.

Multivariate linear regression of sputum eosinophils (a) and FeNO (b) to predict FEV1%-predicted at the time of an asthma exacerbation, corrected for gender, age, smoking status, bacterial infection and ICS usage. Sputum differential counts were available from 67 patients (31 without virus, 36 with virus).

(a)	All patients (n = 67)		No virus detected (n = 31)			Virus detected (n = 36)
	SEB	p-value	SEB		p-value	SEB	p-value
Constant		<0.001			<0.001		<0.001
Sputum eosinophils (%)*	−0.42	0.001	−0.45		0.02	−0.36	0.05
Gender	0.15	0.21	0.19		0.28	0.09	0.63
Age (years)	−0.08	0.48	−0.20		0.25	0.01	0.94
ICS (budesonide eq.)	0.11	0.35	0.02		0.93	0.05	0.76
Bacteria detected	0.02	0.84	0.04		0.84	−0.05	0.78
Smoking status**	−0.01	0.92	0.11		0.58	−0.21	0.23
(b)	All patients (n = 88)		No virus detected (n = 44)			Virus detected (n = 44)
SEB	p-value	SEB	p-value		SEB		p-value
Constant		<0.001		0.003				<0.001
FeNO (ppb)*	−0.17	0.12	−0.01	0.98		−0.37		0.02
Gender	0.31	0.01	0.47	0.003		0.06		0.68
Age (years)	−0.07	0.48	−0.23	0.10		−0.04		0.78
ICS (budesonide eq.)	0.04	0.71	−0.08	0.56		0.06		0.72
Bacteria detected	−0.04	0.69	−0.07	0.60		−0.06		0.68
Smoking status**	−0.05	0.65	0.11	0.44		−0.29		0.06

*Log-transformed. **Never smoker vs. former + current smoker.