Characteristic of a subgroup of non cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis with concomitant asthma

In a group of 157 bronchiectasis, a subgroup of 25 asthmatics was identified. A panel of asthma characteristcs included clinical history, risk factors for asthma, functional data (repeated posivitity to reversibility test and/or methacholine test). All subjects were evaluated into a protocol for bronchiectasis involving imaging analysys as BSI, a search of bacteria in the airway, spirometric evaluations, measurements of airway inflammation indices (induced sputum and FeNO). The 25 subjects with asthma were not different from the other group for age, sex, smoke habit, having mean age 58.8 (SD 16.9), 20 females, and 16 never smoking. Moreover, they were not different also for airway presence of bacteria, and for the main clinical symptoms, aas cough, dyspnoea, recurrent excerbations. The two groups did not show significant difference for BSI, and FEV1 baseline. In the subgroup of bronchiectasis with asthma, we found a higher number of subjects with a positive reversibility test than in bronchiectasis without asthma, 11 out of 25 with respect to 15 out of 112 (chi squared 15.2, p