Fig. 5

Frequencies of sputum leukocytes after liquefaction with the proposed enzymatic method and the traditional reducing procedure. Frequencies (%) of sputum-resident mature neutrophils (A), eosinophils (B) and total lymphocytes (C) in sputum samples (n = 24) processed with PBS (black), the traditional DTT procedure (blue) and the proposed enzymatic method (red). Horizontal bars represent the median and p-values were yielded by a Kruskall-Wallis test. n.s.; non-significant