Table 1.

Clinical and pathological features of NAEB compared with classical asthma and cough variant asthma

Features	NAEB	Classical Asthma	Cough Variant Asthma	Atopic Cough
Symptoms	It is associated with upper respiratory tract symptoms	Shortness of breath, cough, wheezing	Isolated cough	Isolated cough
Atopy	Similar to the general population	Frequent	Frequent	Frequent
Respiratory tract hyperresponsiveness	None	None	None	None
Cough reflex hypersensitivity	Increased	Normal or increased	Normal or increased	increased
Bronchodilator responsiveness	None	Yes	Yes	None
Response to Corticosteroids	Yes	Yes*	Yes*	Yes*
Sputum eosinophilia	Always	Usually	Usually	Usually
Bronchial biopsy eosinophilia	Quite Frequent	Frequent	Frequent	Frequent
Mast cells in airway smooth muscle bundles	None	Yes	Yes	Not known

NAEB: non-astmatic eosinophilic bronchitis

^**In the presence of sputum eosinophilia