Sputum Induction and Bronchoscopy for Assessment of Ozone-Induced Airway Inflammation in Asthma
Studies of human respiratory tract inflammation have traditionally relied on the analysis of samples of airway and alveolar lining fluid and bronchial tissue obtained by bronchoscopy. Although the analysis of these samples has contributed much to our current understanding of various pulmonary disease processes, bronchoscopy is invasive, technically difficult, and not always acceptable to volunteer subjects. Sputum induction (SI) has been demonstrated to be a noninvasive alternate method of assessing airway inflammation that is reproducible, valid, and