IL18 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Activated inflammatory cells can produce a variety of the proinflammatory cytokines ILs, including IL-1 and IL-6 (Dima et al., 2015), and the multiprotein complex NLRP3 inflammasome can produce IL-1β and IL-18, which may contribute to the development of airway inflammation in patients with COPD (Wang et al., 2018b).