IGHE and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: The results demonstrated that the prevalence of elevated serum T-IgE was 47.3% (129/273) in patients with COPD, implying that even among COPD patients without obvious atopy, hypersensitive inflammation of the lower airways may exist, probably representing the real proportion of the allergic phenotype in patients with COPD, a much higher prevalence as compared to those reported by Jamieson et al. [2] and Bafadhel et al. [5].