Long-Term Home Non-Invasive Ventilation in Patients with Severe COPD with Hypercapnic Respiratory Failure: Impact on...

Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) improves outcomes in acute life-threatening hypercapnic respiratory failure due to exacerbations of COPD (ECOPD), but the benefits of long-term home NIV (LTH-NIV) for managing hypercapnic chronic respiratory failure (CRF) in COPD remain unclear.

1) To assess the long-term survival of severe COPD patients with hypercapnic CRF started on LTH-NIV and mortality related factors; 2) To evaluate the impact of LTH-NIV on ECOPD and hospital admissions at follow-up.

COPD patients who started LTH-NIV between January 2009 and December 2018 were included. Medical records and clinical outcomes were retrospectively reviewed.

Forty-four COPD patients (mean [SD] age 66.5 [10.4] years, 81.8% men) with severe airflow obstruction (mean [SD] FEV₁ 36 [16] % of predicted), hypercapnic CRF (mean [SD] PaCO₂ 60.8 [9.2] mmHg) and exacerbator phenotype (mean [IQR] moderate-severe ECOPD 3 [3] in previous year) were included. Median survival from LTH-NIV was 100.3 months. Survival at one, three and five years was 86.4%, 72.7% and 68.2%, respectively. In a multivariate Cox regression model, patients with a significantly increased risk of death were those with older age, lower absolute FVC, more hospitalisations and especially those adapted to LTH-NIV in the acute phase (HR 3.67 (IC 1.04-13), p<0.05). LTH-NIV allowed an estimated mean reduction in ECOPD of 39.7% (65.2% in hospitalisations) at 12 months and 57.4% (81% in hospitalisations) at 24 months.

The survival rate of COPD patients with hypercapnic CRF on LTH-NIV is currently high (>50% at 5 years). Adaptation to LTH-NIV in the stable phase is the most important prognostic determinant and should be considered especially in patients with more hospitalisations and lower FVC values. Initiation of LTH-NIV reduces moderate to severe ECOPD at follow-up.