Personalized management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease via transcriptomic profiling of the airway and lung

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a clinically heterogeneous disease composed of variable degrees of airflow obstruction, emphysematous destruction, and small airway wall thickening. The natural history of this disease, although generally characterized by continued decline in lung function, is also highly variable. Novel transcriptomic approaches to study the airway and lung tissue in COPD hold the potential to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying this heterogeneity and identify molecular subtypes of disease that have similar clinical manifestations. This new understanding can be leveraged to develop targeted COPD therapies and ultimately personalize treatment of COPD based on each patient's specific molecular subphenotype.