Lung function assessment following SARS-CoV-2 infection: past, present and future?

Abstract

Abstract The impact of COVID-19 on lung function is an indisputable reality that has posed major management problems to all categories of specialists who have treated patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. This disease presents an impressive multisystemic feature, in correlation with clinical, paraclinical, imaging and functional heterogeneity. Although most COVID-19 cases have a complete resolution, the evolution of vulnerable patients (elderly or people with multiple comorbidities such as cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, neoplastic or respiratory problems) or those with moderate to severe forms of the disease can be slower or even unfavourable. Recent data in the literature have shown that many of these patients return to hospital due to symptoms and respiratory dysfunction more than 6–12 months after the acute viral episode, highlighting the need for rigorous evaluation and further pulmonary function testing among patients with a history of COVID-19 to anticipate the appearance of long-term respiratory functional sequelae.