Abstract
Introduction: High flow nasal cannula (HFNC) therapy has been shown to be useful in the treatment of patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF) caused by SARS-CoV-2. The ROX index can help predict the success of HFNC in COVID-19 related ARF. However, timing of ROX- index assessment is still unclear to protect the patients from complications due to early or delayed intubation.
Methods: A single-center, retrospective and observational study was performed on patients with ARF secondary to COVID-19 treated with HFNC, between April 2020 and January 2022. The primary aim of the study was to evaluate between ROX index changes within first 48 hours of the therapy to predict HFNC success.
Results: In the study period, 69 patients managed with HFNC for at least 2 hours. While 24 patients (34.7%) were successfully weaned from HFNC, 45 (65.3%) patients were failed. Overall mortality at day 28 was 44.9%. ROX indices were lower in HFNC failure group through the 12th, 24th, 48th hours of the therapy, no significant change was observed (p=0.33). While an overall increase in ROX index patterns were detected in patients weaned from HFNC (p=0.002). Pairwise analyses revealed that ROX indexes remain stable during the first 8th hours in both groups, then improved to 12th hours of the therapy in successfully HFNC-weaned patients.
Conclusion: Dynamic assessments of the ROX indexes could be more suggestive rather than a point assessment to identify patients who would benefit from the HFNC or deteriorate in COVID-19 related ARF.
Footnotes
Cite this article as Eur Respir J 2022; 60: Suppl. 66, 2773.
This article was presented at the 2022 ERS International Congress, in session “-”.
This is an ERS International Congress abstract. No full-text version is available. Further material to accompany this abstract may be available at www.ers-education.org (ERS member access only).
- Copyright ©the authors 2022
