International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Control, Biological Activity and Disease Stability in COPD: A Roadmap towards Personalised Medicine

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a heterogeneous condition with substantial variation in symptoms, exacerbation susceptibility, underlying biological mechanisms and longitudinal outcomes. This heterogeneity calls for a personalised approach that integrates the patient’s current clinical status with disease trajectory, biological characteristics and future risk. Clinical control, biological activity and disease stability offer complementary perspectives that may help translate this approach into measurable therapeutic objectives.

This Article Collection will critically examine these concepts, their interrelationships and their potential contribution to precision medicine in COPD. Clinical control encompasses the clinical impact of the disease and its stability over a defined period. Disease stability describes the absence of clinically meaningful deterioration over time, but does not necessarily imply a low symptom burden or favourable prognosis. Biological activity concerns the underlying processes that may contribute to exacerbations, tissue injury and disease progression. These dimensions may be discordant: a patient with apparently stable symptoms may retain biological activity or substantial future risk, whereas persistent symptoms may reflect established structural damage, comorbidities or other mechanisms requiring different interventions.

The Collection will bring together clinical, translational and methodological research to clarify how these dimensions can be defined, measured and incorporated into individualised management. Particular attention will be given to the validity, responsiveness and prognostic value of clinical control criteria, patient-reported outcomes and longitudinal assessments. Contributions will also explore the role of blood eosinophils, exhaled nitric oxide and other candidate biomarkers in characterising biological activity, predicting outcomes and informing treatment selection. Distinguishing prognostic biomarkers from predictors of treatment response will be an important methodological priority.

A central objective is to examine how the integration of clinical and biological information can support proactive care. Relevant topics include treatable traits, exacerbation prevention, personalised pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions, and the reassessment of treatment when clinical control is lost. The Collection will consider targeted therapies, including biologics, alongside established treatments, while critically appraising the evidence supporting biomarker-guided decisions. Cardiopulmonary and metabolic comorbidities, physical activity, treatment adherence and inhaler technique will be addressed as factors that influence clinical status and the interpretation of treatment response.

We welcome original research, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, perspectives and methodological contributions addressing operational definitions, longitudinal disease trajectories, clinically meaningful thresholds and strategies for implementation. Studies using prospective cohorts, clinical trials and real-world data are particularly encouraged. Digital monitoring and prediction models may also contribute, provided that their clinical utility, external validity and capacity to inform actionable decisions are critically assessed.

By bringing these perspectives together, the Collection aims to develop an evidence-informed roadmap towards personalised COPD management. It will identify established knowledge, unresolved questions and research priorities, including whether interventions guided by clinical control and biological activity improve patient-centred outcomes. The intended readership includes respiratory clinicians, primary care professionals, clinical investigators and translational researchers. Ultimately, the Collection seeks to advance a shared framework for understanding the patient’s present condition, anticipating future deterioration and selecting interventions that address the mechanisms and needs most relevant to that individual.

Keywords

1. Personalised medicine
2. COPD biology
3. Disease control
4. Disease stability
5. Clinical control

­­All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31^st August 2027.

Please contact Zhiyuan Zhang at zhiyuan.zhang@taylorandfrancis.com with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system.

Guest Advisors

Professor Bernardino Alcázar-Navarrete is a respiratory physician at Hospital Universitario Virgen de las Nieves and a faculty member at the University of Granada, Spain. His research focuses on COPD exacerbations, inflammatory biomarkers, clinical control and precision medicine. He leads the respiratory research group at IBS Granada and contributes to CIBERES, the Spanish COPD guidelines and international respiratory research collaborations.

Professor Juan José Soler-Cataluña is the Head of Respiratory Department at Hospital Arnau de Vilanova–Llíria, Spain, and a faculty member at the University of Valencia. His research focuses on COPD exacerbations, prognostic assessment and personalised management. He has played a leading role in developing and validating the concept of clinical control in COPD and has contributed to the Spanish COPD guidelines.