Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the common chronic airway disorders, which accounts for the third to fourth cause of death worldwide. Recently, the focuses of researches are on the multi-factorial risks for development of COPD, mechanisms related to COPD development, early detection and early intervention of COPD, individualized use of long-term maintenance medications as well as phenotypes of acute exacerbation of COPD and their corresponding management. There are huge amount of COPD patients with variety of risk factors or different phenotypes in China, which makes it possible to establish a network for cohort study or real life registration study of COPD. The results will provide new information on the characteristics of COPD in China. Individualized treatment could be recommended according to the phenotypes or endotypes information. All these new findings or progresses could provide impetus for improvement of the ability of research and clinical management of COPD to the worldwide top level.
