Jie-Ling Ma, An-Yi Wang, Dan Lu, Chun-Yan Cheng, Zhi-Cheng Jing
European Respiratory Journal 2024 63: 2301879; DOI: 10.1183/13993003.01879-2023 

Extract

We read with great interest the research letter by Wissmüller et al. [1], which was recently published in the European Respiratory Journal. The authors conducted a prospective, randomised cross-over study to evaluate the impact of face masks on 6-min walking distance (6MWD) in 122 pulmonary hypertension (PH) patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that wearing face masks could lead to a decrease in 6MWD and higher Borg dyspnoea score. However, surprisingly, face masks did not affect maximum heart rate (HR), baseline HR, oxygen saturation and vital signs. In spite of these promising findings, there are some concerns that should be further discussed.