Table 1.

Main characteristics of the studies on chemically injured veterans exposed to sulfur mustard

Author	Year	Country	COPD patients and controls	Inflammatory marker and laboratory measurement
Pourfarzam	2009	Iran	Final sample size, with all necessary data was 348. SM exposed and 120 unexposed controls. The exposed subjects were male individuals from Sardasht categorized into two major subgroups hospitalized (n = 159) and not hospitalized (n = 189) based on severity of problems at the time of exposure. This study was approved by the Ministry of Health of Iran, Shahed University and the Board of Research Ethics of Janbazan Medical and Engineering Research Center	Human IL-6 and IL-8 DuoSet® ELISA Development Kits (R&D Systems) were used to measure IL-6 and IL-8 levels in the sera
Yaraee	2013	Iran	The participants in this study were a subgroup of 40 male SM-exposed individuals in the Sardasht-Iran Cohort Study (SICS). Based on the documents in the medical records verified by the Medical Committee of the Foundation of Martyr and Veterans Affairs, the participants were exposed to SM in June 1987. The mean age was 44.2 ±9.9, and about 12% were smokers and 88% were non-smokers	Human TNF, IL-1α and IL-1β, IL-1Ra and IL-6 DuoSet® ELISA Development Kit (R&D Systems) and fibrinogen (AssayPro ELISA Kit) were used to measure the level of the mediators in the sera and sputum
Ghazanfari	2009	Iran	500 participants including 372 exposed individuals and 128 control subjects were studied. This study was approved by the Ministry of Health of Iran and the Board of Research Ethics of the Janbazan Medical and Engineering Research Center	ELISA kits were used to measure the chemokine MCP-1/CCL2, RANTES/CCL5, IL-8/CXCL8, Fractalkine/CX3CL1 levels