ABSTRACT
Background: Breathox is a sodium chloride inhaler. Increase of the airway salinity has been proposed to reduce the symptomatic stage of a respiratory viral infection. Objective(s): to evaluate the effectiveness of nasal and inhaled sodium chloride therapy through Breathox on mild COVID-19 symptoms in patients >= 18 years-old compared to usual care. Method(s): a pilot, open, randomized clinical trial, including 100 patients with confirmed and symptomatic COVID-19 within 10 days of symptom onset. All patients received standard of care (SOC), i.e. antipyretic or analgesic. Breathox was administered as two oral inhalations and one nasal instillation in each nostril at each administration with 2mg per inhalation. Patients were randomized 1:1:1 into three groups: Group 1(G1): SOC + Breathox 10 times daily for 10 days;Group 2(G2): SOC + Breathox five times daily for 10 days;Group 3(G3): SOC. Recovery time for symptoms, such as cough was assessed. Result(s): In total 100 of 103 screened patients were included from December 1 2021 to March 03 2022. Of those, 33 from G1 and G3, and 32 from G2 completed the study. Mean age was 40.4/42.2/40.6 years old for G1, G2 and G3, (p=0.96). No patients were hospitalized or died during the study. Time to cough resolution was reduced in G1 (2.8+/-0.66 days) and G2 (2.4+/-0.66 days) compared to G3 (5.39+/-0.79 days) (p=0.001), with a hazard ratio (HR) for G2 of 2.17 (Confidence interval 1.17-4.04) and G3 of 2.01 (1.06-3.81) compared to SOC. Conclusion(s): ten days of Breathox use halved the time for resolution of COVID-19-induced cough.
ABSTRACT
Post COVID-19 patients have been suffering from persistent symptoms even after long periods. The physiopathology of these clinical manifestations still has a lack of knowledge. The objective was to evaluate the total expression of metabolites and spittle biological pathways in patients with 60 days post COVID-19. We included 30 post-hospital discharge patients and we compared seven non COVID-19 patients control. All COVID-19 patients were assessed by demographic characteristics, pulmonary function, exercise capacity, quality of life and body composition. The metabolomic analysis was performed in the patient's splits. From the total of post COVID-19 patients, 66% were male, 60+/-14 years. The lean body mass was 30+/-7kg and fat mass 34+/-13kg. Spirometry mean severity showed FVC of 4+/-1L, FEV1 3+/-1L. Pimax and Pemax values were 90+/-31(cmH2O) and 97+/-31(cmH2O), respectively. The quality of life evaluated by the SGRQ questionnaire showed a mean percentage of magnitude of symptoms 32+/-15, activities 41+/-25, impact 13+/-11 and total of 24+/-15. Physical capacity was measured by the distance in the 6MWT, and presented an average of 413+/-131. The metabolomic analysis showed 19 metabolites statistically significant difference between groups. We observed 3 metabolites overexpressed and 16 with lower expression in post COVID19 patients. From those metabolites, we can have attention to Sphinganine(p=0.03), Piperenol A triacetate(p=0.02) and 1-Monopalmitin(p=0.03) were lower expressed in control group. The creatin was one of the non-expressed metabolites in post hospital discharge COVID-19 patients compared to the control group. Thus, metabolomic analysis can demonstrate different metabolites in post COVID-19 patients to answer persistent symptoms.