Point: Is measuring sputum eosinophils useful in the management of severe asthma? Yes.

Financial/nonfinancial disclosures: The authors have reported to CHEST the following conflicts of interest: Drs Hargreave and Nair have a patent on a filter device provided in a kit to process and examine sputum for quantitative inflammatory cell counts and fluid phase indices. This has not been marketed, and there is currently no profit from this. Drs Hargreave and Nair's university hospital laboratory acts as a central laboratory to teach, control quality, troubleshoot, and examine sputum in multicenter drug trials. Drs Hargreave and Nair provide teaching videos for sputum induction and examination through e-learning at machealth.ca . Funding/Support: Dr Nair is supported by a Canada Research Chair in Airway Inflammometry.Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (http://www.chestpubs.org/site/misc/reprints.xhtml ).