Abstract

Home mechanical ventilation (HMV) use in COPD is becoming increasingly widespread.

The study was designed as a cross-sectional, multicenter real-life study of COPD patients established on HMV for at least 30 days and was part of a greater project to ascertain current practices of HMV in COPD patients in Portugal.

The study included 569 COPD patients on HMV from 15 centers.

There was an equal distribution of patients starting HMV during chronic stable condition (n=287) and following an exacerbation (n=282). Differences in clinical characteristics, criteria for initiation and adaptation setting are described in table 1. Patients in stable condition were initiated in the outpatient setting in 92.3%. Despite the differences in criteria and setting of adaptation and a slightly lower BMI and smoking habits in patients starting HMV following an exacerbation, we found no significant differences regarding age, gender, ventilation pressures, time on HMV, usage, severity of airflow obstruction or current arterial blood gas analysis in relation to patients adapted in stable condition.

This study shows that chronic hypercapnic and post exacerbation patients do not differ significantly regarding patient characteristics, physiological parameters or ventilatory settings with one exception: chronic hypercapnic patients are more often obese and, subsequently, more frequently present OSA.