Circulating C1q levels could act as a novel biomarker for COPD in addition to having great potential to predict the risk of COPD deterioration in the future, revealed the latest study by a team of researchers at the Department of General Practice, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, China. The researchers wrote that they measured the serum C1q levels of 203 COPD subjects and 191 non-COPD controls using Spearman’s rho to find that there were significant reductions in serum C1q levels in COPD subjects compared to non-COPD controls. A follow-up after a year showed that C1q levels less than 137.150 mg/l were negatively related to the time to the next severe exacerbation and the time to death.