Extract
We read with interest the study by Hartl et al. [1] entitled “Blood eosinophil count in the general population: typical values and potential confounders”, recently published in the European Respirator Journal. This is an excellent paper showing the distribution of blood eosinophil counts in the general population, including more than 10 000 participants. The authors found a right-skewed, non-normal distribution with the tail towards the higher counts.
Abstract
There is ambiguity in the interpretation of peripheral blood total eosinophil count, and several proposed cut-off values or thresholds of 300 cells per μL have been used to identify the patients who are most likely to benefit from inhaled corticosteroids https://bit.ly/3ktCxof
Acknowledgements
The Nagahama study conforms to the standards of the Declaration of Helsinki. The Ethics Committee of the Kyoto University and the Nagahama Municipal Review Board approved this study protocol (Registry ID G0278). We obtained written informed consent from all the participants. We are grateful to Nagahama City Office and the nonprofit organisation Zeroji Club for their assistance in performing the Nagahama study. We are grateful to Yoshiro Toyama, Masanori Azuma, Ryo Tachikawa and Morito Inouchi (Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan) for their assistance in collecting data.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: H. Sunadome reports grants from Philips-Respironics, Teijin Pharma, Fukuda Denshi, Fukuda Lifetec Keiji and ResMed, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: S. Sato reports grants from Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: H. Matsumoto has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: K. Murase reports grants from Philips-Respironics, Teijin Pharma Fukuda Denshi, Fukuda Lifetec Keiji and ResMed, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: T. Kawaguchi has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: Y. Tabara reports grants from The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan, during the conduct of the study.
Conflict of interest: K. Chin reports grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, grants from the Intractable Respiratory Diseases and Pulmonary Hypertension Research Group, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, grants from the Center of Innovation Program, and the Global University Project from Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, grants from the Research Foundation for Healthy Aging, grants from the Health, Labour and Welfare Sciences Research Grants, Research on Region Medical, during the conduct of the study; grants from Philips-Respironics, Teijin Pharma, Fukuda Denshi, Fukuda Lifetec Keiji and ResMed, outside the submitted work.
Conflict of interest: F. Matsuda reports grants from The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan and Takeda Medical Research Foundation, during the conduct of the study.
Conflict of interest: T. Hirai has nothing to disclose.
Support statement: This study was funded by a University Grant, a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (25293141, 26670313, 26293198, 17H04182, 17H04126, 17H04123, 18K18450), the Center of Innovation Program, and the Global University Project from Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under grant numbers dk0207006, dk0207027, ek0109070, ek0109283, ek0109196, ek0109348, kk0205008, ek0210066, ek0210096, ek0210116, and le0110005, grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Intractable Respiratory Diseases and Pulmonary Hypertension Research Group from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (H29-intractable diseases-general-027), the Takeda Medical Research Foundation, Mitsubishi Foundation, Daiwa Securities Health Foundation, Sumitomo Foundation, the Research Foundation for Healthy Aging, and Health, Labour and Welfare Sciences Research Grants, Research on Region Medical (H28-iryo-ippan-016, H30-iryo-ippan-009). The Dept of Respiratory Care and Sleep Control Medicine is funded by Philips-Respironics, Fukuda Denshi, Fukuda Lifetec Keiji, and ResMed to Kyoto University. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Crossref Funder Registry.
- Received November 8, 2020.
- Accepted November 9, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2021