Safety and pulmonary function impact of surgical mask usage in stable COPD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

There are hesitations about the use of surgical face masks, which are the main tools in protection from the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest disasters of our age, in chronic airway diseases. The purpose of the study was to examine how stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) responded to short-term surgical mask use in terms of in-mask air quality, oxygen saturation, and pulmonary function. Forty-one patients with stable COPD, by clinical presentation and pulmonary function tests (PFTs), were included in a quasi-experimental study. Stable COPD patients' PFTs, in-mask air quality, and pollution measures were collected before and after wearing surgical masks for two hours at rest. The findings of simultaneous tests of peripheral-blood-oxygen saturation were also recorded. The mean age of participants was 67.1 years and 87.8% were male. The pre- and post-mask PFTs parameters for GOLD (A+B) group were FEV1 (ml), FEV1 (%), FVC (ml), FVC (%), FEV1/FVC (%) and DLCO (%) (p=0.067, p=0. 065, p=0.062, p=0.083, p=0.083, p=0.269, p=0.956, respectively), whereas in GOLD (C+D) group (p=0.340, p=0.538, p=0.728, p=0.044, p=0.105, p=0.054, respectively). In post-mask measurements, the respiratory function was not impaired in GOLD-2022 (A-B-C-D) COPD subgroups. Oxygen and carbon-monoxide concentrations in exhaled air and oxygen saturation decreased after surgical mask use. The difference was statistically significant, but the difference was unimportant in terms of clinical implications. Surgical masks don’t appear to have a negative effect on pulmonary function and clinical parameters in stable COPD. This study may help provide evidence-based data to overcome hesitations in use of surgical masks in chronic airway diseases.