Fig. 5

Changes in airway colonisation of respective potentially pathogenic microorganisms over 6 months. Patients were categorised into five groups based on bacterial load defined by genome copies/ml of ≥ 1 × 10⁴; No colonisation (NC) (45.9%), Haemophilus influenzae (HI) (17.2%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (SP) (15.6%), > 1 potentially pathogenic microorganism (PPM) (17.2%) or Moraxella catarrhalis (MC) (4.1%) (n = 122). Within groups, PPM classification at 6 months follow up is shown. 53.5, 42.9, 26.3, 42.9 and 0% of patients were recorded in the same group as baseline for no colonisation, HI, SP, > 1PPM and MC respectively