ABSTRACT
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the fourth most frequent cause of mortality worldwide, without a tendency in decreasing or stabilizing its epidemiological growth, with the prospect of becoming the third cause of mortality in the world by 2020 (Vogelmeier et al., 2017; Mendes et al., 2011; de Sousa et al., 2011). Smoking is the main risk factor for the onset of COPD; in addition to cigarette smoke, occupational dust, chemical irritants, environmental pollution, low socioeconomic status, and severe respiratory infections in childhood constitute other factors. Some individual factors also contribute to COPD development such as bronchial hyper-responsiveness, malnutrition, prematurity, and recurrent respiratory infections. The genetic factor determined by alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency occurs in about 3%–10% of the caucasian population, and may also be associated with the occurrence of COPD (Vogelmeier et al., 2017; de Sousa et al., 2011; Miravitles, 2004).
