Therapeutic Implications and Future Developments

Despite the enormous global impact of COPD and the increasing investment in research, there are no current therapies that have been shown to prevent the inevitable progression of the disease. However, as exemplified in this volume, there is now an increasing understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in COPD (1) and this has identified many new targets and will lead to the development of new therapies in the future (2,3) (Table 1).