SUMMARY Asthma Is associated with Increased alrwar responsiveness to pharmacologic agents such as methacholine. Increases In alrwar responsiveness after exposure to allergen or ozone are associated with Increased Inflammatory cells In bronchoalveolar lavage both In human and In animal studies. We studied the total and differential cell counts In 10 stable atopic asthmatics who had airway hyperTesponslveness but no clinical features of al..., Inflammation and 10 nonasthmatlc subjects, using a conventional10G-miiavage and a 2G-ml washing. Metachromatic cell numbers and eoslnophlls were Increased In both the lavage (p< 0.01 for metachromatic cells; P= 0.05 for eoslnophlls) and washing (p< 0.025 for metachromatic cells and p= 0.03 for eoslnophlls) com. pared with those In nonasthmatlcs. In asthmatics, metachromatic cell numbers In the 11Mlg8 and washing, and total cell count and, to a lesser extent, eoslnophlls In lavage were significantly correlated with measurements of alrwar responsiveness. Major basic protein In lavage and blood did not differ between asthmatics and nonasthmatlcs. The washing, although It revealed a different cell profile from the IlMlge In both normal sub) ects and asthmatics, did not show differences be-tween asthmatics and nonasthmatlcs undetected by the lavage specimen. Weconclude that there