Pulmonary rehabilitation for patients with bronchiectasis: case reports

The effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) has been recognized in national and international guidelines and highlighted by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence as one of the six key priorities for improving the care of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. PR is likely to be effective in bronchiectasis as it is in COPD. We evaluated the efficacy of PR in the management of bronchiectasis. Three outpatients affected by bronchiectasis, with cough, sputum production, dyspnea, and decreased exercise tolerance, were submitted to five months of PR program consisting in treadmill walking, cycle ergometry, breathing exercises, and postural drainage with clapping percussion-vibratory-shaking. In all patients, after PR, chest X-ray showed that the obstructive disease decreased with bronchial wall thickness reduction. This improvement facilitated the performance of breath actions increasing the exercise tolerance and quality of life, evaluated respectively with the 6-minute walk test, the SF36, and the RPE Borg scale. The improvements in both exercise capacity and health status observed at the end of the PR program were maintained in a 6-month follow-up after the cessation of training with also a reduction of acute bronchial exacerbations. These results highlighted the potential role of PR in patients with bronchiectasis, however further investigations are needed to identify the most eligible patients and to optimize the training programs to maintain long term benefit. Chest x-ray may represent a relevant instrument to observe the clinical improvement of these patients, also when spirometric values do not change significantly.