The Cardiopulmonary Effects of Medical Masks and Filtering Facepiece Respirators on Healthy Health Care Workers in the Emergency Department: A Prospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: International COVID-19 guidelines recommend that health care workers (HCWs) wear filtering facepiece (FFP) respirators to reduce exposure risk. However, there are concerns about FFP respirators causing hypercapnia via rebreathing carbon dioxide (CO2). Most previous studies measured the physiological effects of FFP respirators on treadmills or while resting, and such measurements may not reflect the physiological changes of HCWs working in the emergency department (ED). OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to evaluate the physiological and clinical impacts of FFP type II (FFP2) respirators on HCWs during 2 h of their day shift in the ED. METHODS: We included emergency HCWs in this prospective cohort study. We measured end-tidal CO2 (ETCO2), mean arterial pressure (MAP), respiratory rate (RR), and heart rate values and dyspnea scores of subjects at two time points. The first measurements were carried out with medical masks while resting. Subjects then began their day shift in the ED with medical mask plus FFP2 respirator. We called subjects after 2 h for the second measurement. RESULTS: The median age of 153 healthy volunteers was 24.0 years (interquartile range 24.0-25.0 years). Subjects' MAP, RR, and ETCO2 values and dyspnea scores were significantly higher after 2 h. Median ETCO2 values increased from 36.4 to 38.8 mm Hg. None of the subjects had hypercapnia symptoms, hypoxia, or other adverse effects. CONCLUSION: We did not observe any clinical reflection of these changes in physiological values. Thus, we evaluated these changes to be clinically insignificant. We found that it is safe for healthy HCWs to wear medical masks plus FFP2 respirators during a 2-h working shift in the ED.

Variables Affecting Mortality Among COVID-19 Patients With Lung Involvement Admitted to the Emergency Department.

INTRODUCTION: A cluster of atypical pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, turned out to be a highly contagious disease, swept across most of the countries, and soon after was announced as a pandemic. Therefore we aimed to investigate the demographics and factors associated with the disease outcome. METHODS: In this retrospective chart review, we screened patients admitted to the emergency department with severe acute respiratory infection due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) between March 15, 2020 and April 30, 2020. Age, gender, symptoms, laboratory data, and radiology data were obtained, as well as outcomes and length of stay. RESULTS: We identified 177 patients (54.8% male). Seventy-eight percent of the cases were admitted into wards whereas 22% of the cases were admitted into the intensive care unit (ICU). Twenty-five percent of the cases needed invasive mechanical ventilation during their hospital stay and median length of hospital stay until death or discharge was eight days (interquartile range (IQR) 5.0 - 16.0). Among 177 patients, overall in-hospital mortality rate was 19.8% (n=35; male:female=18:17; p=0.6553). In-hospital mortality rates were statistically significantly higher in patients with higher age (64 vs. 74; p=0.0091), respiratory rate (RR) (28 vs. 36; p=0.0002), C-reactive protein (CRP) (54.7 vs. 104.0; p<0.0001), d-dimer (1.2 vs. 3.2; p<0.0001), ferritin (170 vs. 450.4; p<0.0001), fibrinogen (512 vs. 598; p=0.0349), international normalized ratio (INR) (1.1 vs. 1.3; p=0.0001), prothrombin time (PT) (14.8 vs. 17.4; p=0.0001), procalcitonin (0.1 vs. 0.3; p<0.0001), creatinine (0.9 vs. 1.1; p=0.0084), longer length of stay (LOS) (8.0 vs. 13.0; p=0.0251) with lower oxygen saturation (sO2) (93.0% vs 87.5%; p<0.0001), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (78 vs. 70; p=0.0039), lymphocyte (1.2 vs. 0.8; p=0.0136), and with positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results (28.6% vs. 12.8%; p=0.0118). CONCLUSION: Patients with older age, higher RR, lower sO2 and DBP, higher creatinine, d-dimer, INR, CRP, procalcitonin, ferritin, and fibrinogen on initial admission were found to be less likely to survive COVID-19.