Maxens Decavèle, Thomas Similowski
European Respiratory Journal 2021 58: 2100988; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.00988-2021
Extract
Dyspnoea, namely a patient's complaint of difficult, disturbing or distressing breathing, is a symptom that prompts physicians to undertake diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in order to identify and correct causative pathophysiological abnormalities. Dyspnoea can become self-perpetuating (a syndrome) when it persists despite mechanistic treatments. It then justifies symptomatic management to alleviate suffering [1, 2]. Above all, dyspnoea is an experience that changes patients’ lives and requires holistic approaches [3]. In this issue of the European Respiratory Journal, Stevens et al. [4], from a group that has achieved outstanding progress in the understanding of dyspnoea [5], spotlight yet another aspect of dyspnoea. They highlight its value as a very generic warning sign of impending doom: in unselected patients admitted to hospital, the “mere fact” of reporting dyspnoea is associated with an increased risk of hospital mortality. This risk increases with increasing intensity of dyspnoea.
Patients reporting dyspnoea on admission to an hospital ward are at increased risk of death during their hospital stay https://bit.ly/2Q5pYWR
Footnotes
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Conflict of interest: M. Decavèle has nothing to disclose.
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Conflict of interest: T. Similowski reports personal fees from AstraZeneca France, Boehringer Ingelheim France, GSK France, TEVA France, Chiesi France, Lungpacer Inc. and ADEP Assistance, personal fees and non-financial support from Novartis France, grants from Air Liquide Medical Systems, outside the submitted work.
- Received April 3, 2021.
- Accepted April 6, 2021.
- Copyright ©The authors 2021. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions@ersnet.org
