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Comment
. 2021 Nov;51(11):1810-1815.
doi: 10.1111/imj.15345.

Six-month respiratory outcomes and exercise capacity of COVID-19 acute respiratory failure patients treated with continuous positive airway pressure

Sarah Damanti  1 , Giuseppe Alvise Ramirez  2 , Enrica Paola Bozzolo  1 , Patrizia Rovere-Querini  3   4 , Rebecca De Lorenzo  3 , Cristiano Magnaghi  4 , Raffaella Scotti  1 , Giuseppe Di Lucca  1 , Alessandro Marinosci  1 , Silvia Strada  1 , Gaetano Di Terlizzi  1 , Giordano Vitali  5 , Sabina Martinenghi  5   6 , Nicola Compagnone  3 , Giovanni Landoni  7 , Moreno Tresoldi  1
Affiliations
Comment

Six-month respiratory outcomes and exercise capacity of COVID-19 acute respiratory failure patients treated with continuous positive airway pressure

Sarah Damanti et al. Intern Med J. 2021 Nov.

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 long-term sequelae are ill-defined since only a few studies have explored the long-term consequences of this disease so far.

Aims: To evaluate the 6-month respiratory outcome and exercise capacity of COVID-19 acute respiratory failure (ARF) patients treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) during the first wave of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A retrospective observational study included COVID-19 patients with ARF. Interventions included CPAP during hospitalisation and 6-month follow up. Frailty assessment was carried out through frailty index (FI), pO2 /FiO2 during hospitalisation and at follow up, respiratory parameters, 6-min walking test (6MWT) and the modified British Medical Research Council (mMRC) and Borg scale at follow up.

Results: More than half of the patients had no dyspnoea according to the mMRC scale. Lower in-hospital pO2 /FiO2 correlated with higher Borg scale levels after 6MWT (ρ 0.27; P 0.04) at the follow-up visit. FI was positively correlated with length of hospitalisation (ρ 0.3; P 0.03) and negatively with the 6MWT distance walked (ρ -0.36; P 0.004).

Conclusions: Robust and frail patients with COVID-19 ARF treated with CPAP outside the intensive care unit setting had good respiratory parameters and exercise capacity at 6-month follow up, although more severe patients had slightly poorer respiratory performance compared with patients with higher PaO2 /FiO2 and lower FI.

Keywords: COVID-19; acute respiratory failure; exercise capacity; follow up.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Variations of pO2/FiO2 between hospital stay and 6‐month follow‐up visits.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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