Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) significantly increases the mortality of the patients with COPD. Guidelines have recommended systemic glucocorticoid as regular treatment. Recently, evidences have shown that systemic glucocorticoid cannot not be benefit to all of the patients with AECOPD. Thus the problem that how the clinicians can screen the patients who can benefit from systemic glucocorticoid needs to be solved urgently. A previous study found that plasma metabolome changed significantly after dexamethasone treatment in health participants. Furthermore, inter-person variability was high and remained uninfluenced by treatment, suggesting the potential of metabolomics for predicting the efficacy and side effects of systemic glucocorticoid. Our previous study found that serum metabolites profile in COPD patients differed from that in controls. Therefore, the investigators hypothesized that metabolome changes in patients with AECOPD may be associated with the efficacy of systemic glucocorticoid. In this study, the investigators will utilize ultraperformance liquid chromatography / mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (GC-MS) methods for analysis of the metabolites in AECOPD patients and compare the metabolites profiles between patients with systemic glucocorticoid treatment success and treatment failure. The investigators aim to detect the metabolic biomarkers and metabolic pathways which are related to efficacy of systemic glucocorticoid and contribute to the precise treatment of COPD.
