Oh JY, et al. - In patients with smoking-associated COPD (S-COPD) vs tuberculosis-associated COPD (T-COPD), researchers assessed the lung function, systemic inflammatory markers, and their impacts on acute exacerbation (AE). The results obtained from this multicenter cross-sectional cohort study indicate that patients with T-COPD have higher levels of systemic inflammatory markers vs those with S-COPD. Compared to patients with S-COPD, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and IL-6 levels were significantly higher in patients with T-COPD. As per multivariate logistic regression analysis, FEV₁ was a significant factor predicting AE in S-COPD whereas IL-6 was a significant factor predicting AE in T-COPD.