Oscillatory Positive Expiratory Pressure in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

AbstractEvidence-based guidance for the use of airway clearance techniques (ACT) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is lacking in-part because well-established measurements of pulmonary function such as the forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1) are relatively insensitive to ACT. The objective of this crossover study was to evaluate daily use of an oscillatory positive expiratory pressure (oPEP) device for 21–28 days in COPD patients who were self-identified as sputum-producers or non-sputum-producers.COPD volunteers provided written informed consent to daily oPEP use in a randomized crossover fashion. Participants completed baseline, crossover and study-end pulmonary function tests, St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), Patient Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ), Six-Minute Walk Test and 3He magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the measurement of ventilation abnormalities using the ventilation defect percent (VDP).Fourteen COPD patients, self-identified as sputum-producers and 13 COPD-no...