Impact of smoking habits in COPD patients under home noninvasive ventilation

Background– Tabaco smoking is the most important risk factor for COPD. However considerable amount of patients who develop COPD never smoked. Aims– To compare the populations of current/former smokers and never smokers in stable COPD patients under home noninvasive ventilation (HNIV) concerning demographics, radiology, respiratory function and blood gas analysis. Materials and methods– Retrospective observational study of severe COPD patients under HNIV followed at our hospital in 2018. Whenever possible HNIV was targeted to obtain normocapnia (reduce baseline PaCO2 by 20% or achieve PaCO2 values Results– 71 COPD patients were included. The results are summarized in the table. Data are presesnt as n(%), mean±standard deviation and Δ as difference berween final and first evaluattion(%); *p Conclusion – Never smokers were older, had more bronchiectasis and less severe airway obstruction. This group had more history of pulmonary tuberculosis and a higher percentage achieved target HNIV objective.