ABSTRACT
The recent Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) guidelines [1] have highlighted that, in addition to inflammation, two other processes may be important in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). They are oxidative stress (OS), and an imbalance between proteases and endogenous antiproteases in the lung (Fig. 1). These processes may themselves be consequences of inflammation, or they may result from environmental (e.g., oxidant compounds in cigarette smoke) or genetic (e.g., a1-antitrypsin (a1-AT) deficiency) factors.
