ABSTRACT
Methods: in this retrospective study, we evaluated 394 patients from march 2020 to december 2020 and we enrolled43 patients who developed fibrotic lesions after 1 year from a sars cov2 pneumoniae.These patients underwent BAL (Bronchioloalveolar lavage), respiratory functional and immunological tests.At admission, 41/43 patients had GGO on chest CT scan, while 13/43 showed parenchymal consolidation. 9/43 weretreated with oxygen therapy, 14/43 with HNFC, 10/43 with NIV, 10/43 with IOT.At 12 months CT, 23/43 had persistent GGO areas and 2/43 lung consolidations. All showed new onset interstitialthickening. Result(s): no differences in lung volumes between patients who required mechanical ventilation vs those who did not;while the Dlco values were lower in mechanical ventilated patients (p=0.047).The median negativization of the nasopharyngeal molecular swab was 30 days: we didn't show differences in eitherinflammation markers and in the respiratory function parameters in those who had negativization before or after 30days. 43/394 patients showed persistence of DLco and CT scan alterations. We submitted these patients to BAL in order to quantify whether there was inflammation of the lung. Median lymphocytes on BAL was 10%, while median serum lymphocytes was 31.4%. Only 4/43 patients had BAL lymphocytosis greater than 30%. We treated these 4 patients with systemic steroid therapy as an organizing pneumoniae. Conclusion(s): patients who were hospitalized with respiratory failure due to Covid 19, 10% had TC and respiratory functional changes after one year and 10% of these, had lymphocytic inflammation in the BAL, treated with steroid. Further studies are needed.