{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026020408163265306, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01020408163265306, 'mean_word_length': 5.809027777777778, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 2, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Children with asthma: will nebulised salbutamol reduce hospital admissions?

SIR,-We compared serum fructosamine with glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA,,) measurements in normal and diabetic individuals (fig 1) to demonstrate both the relative sensitivity of each test and the linear trend in values from normal subjects through insulinopenic individuals to patients with complete endogenous insulin deficiency. Inspection of the data suggests a linear association between these two tests, confirmed by the highly significant correlation coefficient (r = 082, p < 0 001). Some scatter of results in fig 1 was not unexpected since fructosamine and HbAl, are different indices that reflect average blood glucose values over different time intervalsthat is, three weeks and six weeks respectively. Moreover, fructosamine (glycosylated serum protein) measurements appear to be more sensitive than HbAl, in detecting individuals with a recent episode of poor blood glucose control, accounting for the six diabetic patients with raised fructosamine but normal HbA,C values. This observation has been corroborated by others using different assay techniques to measure glycosylated serum protein concentrations.' Increased diagnostic sensitivity is attributed to the faster glycosylation and shorter half life of serum proteins compared with haemoglobin.1 Rank statistical outliers (points that are more than 3 standard deviations from the regression line) were excluded from the calculation of Pearson's correlation coefficient in fig 3 because such points had a disproportionate influence on the statistical analysis in question. Outliers may represent either gross analytical errors or, in this comparison, individuals who were not truly representative of the population under investigation (see results). The conclusion was not affected since Pearson's correlation coefficient calculated with the 2 patients included (r= -0-74) remained highly significant (p < 0-001).