Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common worldwide disease with high morbidity and mortality especially in association with severe exacerbation. The exacerbation events are associated with high systemic inflammation. In that context, we studied some inflammatory markers which were interleukin (IL) 6, IL-8 and C-reactive protein. We paid more attention to the cases of acute respiratory failure during the COPD exacerbation and the response to non-invasive mechanical ventilation in these cases. We tried in our work to point out an inflammatory marker which could reflect the severity, response to therapy and mortality in these cases.