Macrophages, corticosteroids and COPD: what do we know?

The numbers of pulmonary macrophages are increased in COPD. There is evidence that the function of these cells is altered in COPD, and that they contribute to the pathogenesis of the disease. Here we discuss our recently published pooled analysis of five previous macrophage publications. This confirmed that there is no difference in the corticosteroid sensitivity of COPD macrophages compared to controls. We discuss the limitations of corticosteroids for the suppression of macrophage derived CXCL8, which is a neutrophil chemoattractant. We
also discuss recent evidence for myeloid derived cell sub-populations in human lungs, and the relevance to COPD.