ICOSL expression is significantly higher in nasal tissue of CRS
patients with edematous pattern
All CRS patients were also classified into different histopathological
pattern. We found that the percentage of mere hyperplasia (38.1%) and
fibrotic pattern (33.3%) were overwhelming in Non-eCRS, while none of
these two types were observed in ECRS (Fig. 3A). In group ECRS, pattern
edematous combined with fibrotic accounted for the largest proportion
(40.0%), followed by edematous plus hyperplasia pattern (30.0%) and
edematous pattern (30.0%), which were all characterized by edema (Fig.
3A). When the six patterns were combined into three types, the edematous
pattern was seen in 28.6% of Non-eCRS patients and 100.0% in patients
of ECRS. Whereas, the proportions of fibrotic and hyperplasia patterns
were both slightly lower in ECRS than Non-eCRS, respectively. (40.0% vs
47.6%, 30.0 vs 47.6%, Fig. 3B).
According to the great difference of the proportion in edematous subtype
and merely little variation of that in hyperplasia and fibrotic subtypes
between ECRS and Non-eCRS, we thus only examined CD40-CD40L and
ICOS-ICOSL expression in the histopathological subtype of edema. Results
showed that the expression levels of ICOSL (59.21 ± 12.76 vs 16.16 ±
2.89, P=0.0319, Fig. 3C) were significantly increased in the nasal
tissue of CRS patients with edematous pattern compared with that in
Non-edematous pattern CRS patients. The number of ICOS or CD40 positive
cells was also higher in edematous pattern nasal tissue compared with
that in the nasal polyps of Non-edematous pattern CRS patients, but no
significant difference was observed (Fig. 3D-E). But in contrast, there
was no obvious difference in tissue CD40L expression between edematous
and Non-edematous pattern CRS patients (Fig. 3F).