Respirators used by healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 outbreak increase end-tidal carbon dioxide and fractional inspired carbon dioxide pressure

Levent Özdemir, Mustafa Azizoğlu, Davud Yapıcı, Levent Özdemir, Mustafa Azizoğlu, Davud Yapıcı

Abstract

  1. Due to COVID-19, compliance of manufactured respirators with standards seems to be placed in the second plan.

  2. Personal protective equipments (PPE), such as respirators, causes carbon dioxide re-breathing in healthcare workers.

  3. Even when resting, both expiratory and inspiratory carbon dioxide levels increase significantly with the use of PPE.

  4. It should be kept in mind that healthcare workers may experience symptoms related to hypercapnia during their use of PPE.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Variations of EtCO2 and FiCO2 measurements during 30 min. EtCO2: end tidal carbon dioxide pressure, FiCO2: fractional inspired carbon dioxide.

References

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Source: PubMed

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