Efficacy of short-term intrapulmonary percussive ventilation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Purpose: We evaluated the effectiveness of intrapulmonary percussive ventilation (IPV) compared to traditional standard chest physical therapy (CPT) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and productive cough.

Methods: We conducted a quasi-experimental clinical trial. Twenty patients, 40% female (mean ± SD age: 70 ± 8 years), with COPD and productive cough received a multimodal respiratory treatment including IPV and CPT or a control intervention CPT for 10 days.

Outcomes: PImax, PEmax, heart rate, respiratory rate, SBP, DBP, Likert scale, Borg dyspnea scale and arterial blood gas analysis: PO2, PCO2, pH, HCO3 and SpO2 measurements. All measures were collected at baseline and at the end of the intervention. We used repeated ANOVA to examine the effects of interventions within groups, between-subjects and the within-subjects.

Results: A significant effect of time interaction (F = 7.27; p = 0.015, F = 6.16; p = 0.02 and F = 7.41; p = 0.014) existed for PO2, SpO2 and dyspnea over the moderate COPD and productive cough immediately after the intervention (all, p < 0.02). Both treatments are similarly effective in PImax and PEmax. No significant group effect or group-by-time interaction was detected for any of them, which suggests that both groups improved in the same way.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence that a short-term combination of IPV and CPT improves PO2, SpO2 and perceived dyspnea than a traditional standard CPT in patients with COPD and productive cough.