5-year follow-up of a respiratory rehabilitation program

Respiratory diseases, like COPD, gradually impairs a patient’s overall physical ability and reduces health-related quality of life. Respiratory rehabilitation (RR) has proved to have clinical benefits in some pathologies but there is a lack of long-term results. The objective of this study was to examine the 5-year mortality and prognostic factors in a RR program. A retrospective analysis of the patients integrated into RR program in 2014 was conducted. 73 cases were considered, with a male predominance of 72.6% (median age of 66.0 years). The majority of the patients had obstructive diseases as COPD in 77.1% and Asthma in 5.7%. The others had various diagnoses belonging to diffuse lung diseases (7.1%), bronchiectasis (4.3%) and restrictive syndromes (2.9%). The median FEV1 was 43.1% and a median of meter walked in the 6-MWT of 420.0 m. 6 patients (8.2%) did not complete the program, 4 of them quit and the other 2 died during the program. 46.6% repeated the program, 27.4% repeated for ≤3 years and 24.7% for ≥3years. 17.8% maintained domiciliary exercises after program. At the end of the 5-year follow-up, only 61.6% of the patients were alive. 57.7% died in the context of exacerbation. Lower values of FVC (p=0.038), distance walked in 6-MWT (p=0.024) and superior values of PASP (p In this real-world retrospective study, we found satisfactory maintenance of the RR program, either in the hospital or at home, and 5-year mortality of 38.4%. The major prognostic factors were the value of FVC, 6-MWT distance and PASP. RR is an unvalued tool to patients with respiratory diseases and it’s crucial to identify the precociously the patients to refer to RR.