Table 1.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of the study patients

Parameters	Asthmatic patients	Disease controls
N	50	35
Diagnoses	50 patients with asthma; 47 patients with allergic rhinitis, 29 with chronic sinusitis, 42 with GERD, 3 with bronchiectasis and 5 with aspiration	21 patients with chronic cough and concurrent allergic rhinitis & GERD, 6 patients with bronchiectasis, 7 with chronic aspiration and 1 with COPD
Male/female	28/22	19/16
Age	53.1 ± 4 (52)	54.3 ± 4 (53)
FEV1 (%)	71.4 ± 4 (72α)* [64–81β]	89.4 ± 4 (89) [78–99]
Reversibility (%)	17.0 ± 6 (14)*[10–21]	2.8 ± 0.6 (2) [0–6]
PC20 (mg/ml) for methacholine	2.7 ± 0.6 (2.3)*a [0.3–6]	24.2 ± 0.8 (25) [20–25]
Allergy skin test positivity	44	24
Eosinophils/μL blood	490 ± 88 (300)* [200–700]	100 ± 21 (100) [0–200]
Total IgE (KIU/L)	277 ± 34 (177) [88–525]	132 ± 72 (59) [32–266]
BMI	28.1 ± 2 (28)	27.6 ± 1 (27)
Asthma medications	systemic steroids: 10 patients Omalizumab: 13 ICS/LABA: 50 LTI: 19 SABA: 50 Tiotropium: 9	ICS/LABA: 7 SABA: 18

^αnumber in the parenthesis () indicates median;

^βnumbers in [] indicate the range in the group.

^*P<0.05, Mann-Whitney U test;

^aperformed with 35 patients