IL7R and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Our data, which for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, show that as the expression level of lnc-IL7R increased, the probability of COPD decreased profoundly, with associated statistically significant linear correlation between lnc-IL7R expression, post-BD FEV1/FVC ratio, and predicted FEV1 (%), is diagnostically relevant.