4 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Several clinical procedures have been described as aerosol generating procedure (AGP), including nebulization, high-flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy, noninvasive ventilation, and bronchial hygiene treatment, etc. However, the understanding on the transmission risk of these treatments is still unclear, particularly the methods to reduce the airborne particulate concentrations during these treatments are still lacking. This study is aimed to compare different modalities in reducing airborne particulate concentrations during these aerosol generating procedures, in order to find the most effective method to reduce particle concentrations, ultimately to decrease the transmission risk and protect health care providers.
For spontaneous breathing patients with tracheostomy, whose lower airway is directly opened to the room air, the aerosol particles generated by the patients would be directly dispersed into the room air, which might be an direct resource of virus transmission. However, the transmission risk has not been evaluated and the appropriate humidification therapy is unknown. Thus this study is aimed to investigate the aerosol particle concentrations among different oxygen devices for spontaneous breathing patients with tracheostomy, in order to reflect the transmission risk.
Due to the concerns of virus transmission during COVID-19 pandemic, multiple respiratory societies postpone or limit pulmonary function test, especially cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), as patients may generate large amount of aerosol particles during test but it is conventionally performed without filter. This study aims to investigate the effects of reducing aerosol particle concentrations in the room air during CPET by placing an inline filter, and to assess the effects of filter on the physiologic responses during CPET.
Massive number of clinicians were infected during the outbreak of COVID-19, which raised the concerns of utilizing "aerosol generating procedures", particularly the use of high-flow nasal cannula, noninvasive ventilation, intubation, bronchoscopy examination and pulmonary function test. There appears to be a trend to avoid those treatments. Instead, aggressive intubation might cause shortage of medical devices and add extra workload. Therefore, we aimed to do a clinical observational study to evaluate the aerosol generation in these procedures and explore the potential measures to reduce the aerosol generation or dispersion.