Feasibility and Consistency of Results with Deployment of an In-Line Filter for Exercise-Based Evaluations of Patients With Heart Failure During the Novel Coronavirus Disease-2019 Pandemic.
Rohan R Bhat, Mark W Schoenike, Alyssa Kowal, Casey White, Jennifer Rouvina, Charles C Hardin, Rajeev Malhotra, Gregory D Lewis
Author Information
Rohan R Bhat: Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Mark W Schoenike: Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Alyssa Kowal: Pulmonary Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Casey White: Pulmonary Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Jennifer Rouvina: Pulmonary Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Charles C Hardin: Pulmonary Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Rajeev Malhotra: Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
Gregory D Lewis: Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Pulmonary Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. Electronic address: glewis@partners.org.
BACKGROUND: Exercise testing plays an important role in evaluating heart failure prognosis and selecting patients for advanced therapeutic interventions. However, concern for severe acute respiratory syndrome novel coronavirus-2 transmission during exercise testing has markedly curtailed performance of exercise testing during the novel coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. METHODS AND RESULTS: To examine the feasibility to conducting exercise testing with an in-line filter, 2 healthy volunteer subjects each completed 2 incremental exercise tests, one with discrete stages of increasing resistance and one with a continuous ramp. Each subject performed 1 test with an electrostatic filter in-line with the system measuring gas exchange and air flow, and 1 test without the filter in place. Oxygen uptake and minute ventilation were highly consistent when evaluated with and without use of an electrostatic filter with a >99.9% viral efficiency. CONCLUSIONS: Deployment of a commercially available in-line electrostatic viral filter during cardiopulmonary exercise testing is feasible and provides consistent data compared with testing without a filter.
