Abstract
By bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) a proportion of inflammatory cells are washed out from the lung. The mechanism is still poorly understood. The normal composition of BAL cells is 80–85 % macrophages, up to 15 % lymphocytes, predominantly of T lineage with a balanced helper-suppressor ratio of 1:1, 1–3 % neutrophils, <1 % eosinophils, and <0,1 % mast cells. In children BAL composition is slightly different: normal lymphocyte count is around 10 %, mast cells can be higher (0.5 %), and the other cells are similar in number to adults [1]. Since there exists a macrophage alveolitis, it is necessary to study the phenotype of macrophages. Normally there will be a mixture of small, monocyte-like, and mature larger macrophages; multinucleated and giant cells are absent. In case of macrophage alveolitis, there will be a mixture of immature monocytoid, mature and large reactive cells, as well as multinucleated giant cells – as a response to different diseases, for example, respiratory bronchiolitis. In this chapter, we will not add figures, because BAL examples from different diseases have been added in the respective chapters.
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Popper, H. (2017). Bronchoalveolar Lavage as a Diagnostic and Research Tool. In: Pathology of Lung Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-50491-8_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-50491-8_15
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