IL6 and Increased total eosinophil count: Moreover, using ROC curve analysis to calculate cut-off points we found that serum H3cit was increased in subjects with BAL eosinophilia above 144 cells/ml (20.77 [18.26–23.27] ng/ml vs. 16.05 [14.57–17.54] ng/ml, p = 0.02), with BAL total cell count higher than 10.725 cells/ml (18.09 [11.29–29.83] ng/ml vs. 15.12 [9.48–19.53] ng/ml, p = 0.03), as well as with BAL IL-6 levels higher than 0.76 pg/ml (19.53 [11.29–32.00] ng/ml vs. 15.98 [10.96–18.06] ng/ml, p = 0.04) (Additional file 2: Fig. S1).