While we did not evaluate the basal concentration of any cytokine in the serum of our cohort, we found that there was a large variability in the baseline secretion of IL-6 from T cells that did not discriminate ever-smokers with or without emphysema (data not shown); however we found that T cell responses to EFs resulted in a significant and sustained increase in IL-6 secretion. The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is pulmonary emphysema.