Isolation of Circulating Pulmonary Cells in COPD and Its Relationship With Clinical Relevant Outcomes (IbICEnCa)

We have demonstrated for the very first time that it is possible to isolate CPCs (circulating pulmonary cells) in patients with COPD in a sample of 17 patients (with a recovery rate of nearly 40%) and none of 10 healthy, non- smokers controls with a patented method \[provisional Spanish Patent Application (P201730724)\], based on liquid biopsy methodology (Romero Palacios et at, submitted 2017), showing that patients with COPD and isolation of CPCs have a more severe disease (expressed as higher BODEx index) and a trend towards a higher rate of decline of lung function as well as an increased rate of exacerbations, suggesting that CPCs isolation could be of value as a diagnostic and prognostic tool identifying patients with more active diseases. However, due to the small sample, no definitive conclusions could be made. Moreover, as there were no healthy smokers included in this study, we couldn´t evaluate if CPCs could be isolated in this type of population. The fact that CPCs could be isolated in a group of patients with COPD and its relationship with greater severity suggests that this could be a marker of progression of the disease and could detect those patients more likely to benefit from newer antiinflamatory therapies(17)