6-Month Respiratory Outcomes and Exercise Capacity of COVID-19 Acute Respiratory Failure Patients Treated With CPAP.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 long-term sequelae are ill-defined since only few studies have explored the long-term consequences of this disease so far. OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the 6-month respiratory outcomes 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. DESIGN: retrospective observational study. PATIENTS: COVID-19 patients with ARF. INTERVENTIONS: CPAP during hospitalization and 6-month follow-up. MAIN MEASURES: frailty assessment through frailty index (FI), pO2/FiO2 during hospitalization 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. KEY 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 follow up visit. FI was positively correlated with length of hospitalization (ρ 0.3; p 0.03) and negatively with the 6MWT walked distance (ρ -0.36; p 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: robust and frail patients with COVID-19 ARF treated with NIV 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 to patients with higher PaO2/FiO2 and lower FI. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.