Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the management of chronic noninfectious respiratory diseases
Angélica Tiotiu, Herberto Chong Neto, András Bikov, Krzysztof Kowal, Paschalis Steiropoulos, Marina Labor, Iván Chérrez-Ojeda, Héctor Badellino, Alexander Emelyanov, Rocío Calderón García, Guillermo Guidos Fogelbach
Abstract
Most of chronic respiratory diseases (except asthma and cystic fibrosis) are associated with more severe COVID-19 and poor outcomes but the mechanisms involved are not yet identified. The therapeutic management of the patients with chronic respiratory diseases and COVID-19 is similar to the other patients but the post-recovery course could be worse in this population and followed by the development of pulmonary fibrosis, bronchiectasis, and pulmonary hypertension. The pandemic highly impacted our usual medical activities by limiting the access to several diagnosis procedures, the necessity to develop new methods for the monitoring of the disease and adapt the therapeutic strategies. The long-term consequences of all these changes are still unknown.