[Cytologic and certain cytoenzymologic characteristics of sputum in chronic nonspecific lung diseases].

The results of cytological examinations of sputum in 100 patients with chronic bronchitis in the period of exacerbration of the disease and in 70 patients with limited chronic inflammatory process in the lung clinically interpreted either as chronic pneumonia or pneumosclerosis are compared. Considerable accumulations of round-cell elements of inflammatory infiltrate with predominance of monocytes as well as predominant exfoliation of transitory bronchial epithelium and not ciliated epithelium were most frequently found in the group of patients with limited chronic inflammatory process in the lung. Fragments of atypical bronchial epithelium simulating cancer elements were found mostly in patients with chronic bronchitis showing marked an asthmatic component. In the course of exacerbation of chronic asthmatic bronchitis accompanied by positive clinical dynamics, there was an increase in the size of alveolar macrophages in the sputum and increase in the content of hydrolytic enzymes, acid phosphatase and nonspecific esterase, in them.