TY - JOUR T1 - Response to COVID-19 phenotyping correspondence JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.02756-2020 VL - 56 IS - 2 SP - 2002756 AU - Lieuwe D.J. Bos AU - Pratik Sinha AU - Robert P. Dickson Y1 - 2020/08/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/56/2/2002756.abstract N2 - In their letter, R. Cherian and co-workers take issue with our interpretation of the respiratory physiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), arguing that it is based merely on “small cohort studies”, and instead declaring that “a high proportion of mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients exhibit near-normal lung compliance”. Yet the low respiratory compliance of COVID-19 patients has now been extensively demonstrated by studies totalling more than 800 COVID-19 patients [1–7], including a direct comparison with non-COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients that revealed no difference in respiratory compliance [7]. In contrast, the three case series cited by R. Cherian and co-workers in support of their claim comprise cohorts of, respectively, 16, 10 and 26 patients [8–10]. Furthermore, even these case series report average respiratory compliance in COVID-19 of 40–45 mL·cmH2O−1, which is in fact abnormal and far from “near-normal compliance” [11, 12].Phenotyping of COVID-19-related ARDS should be done using careful, data-driven approaches https://bit.ly/3eX65Yu ER -