ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the nature of the pathology in the small airways of human lungs from patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It begins with a brief description of the anatomy of the airways below the larynx as a background to a review of the current literature on the response of these airways to themajor risk factors for COPD. This is followed by a review of inflammatory traffic in the peripheral lung and a review of the innate and adaptive immune response in order to discuss the lesions described in the small airways in terms of these fundamental mechanisms. The observations made on the lower airways of patients with COPD are reviewed in relation to what is known about the inflammatory cell traffic and the innate and acquired immune response of the host.
