Copyright ERS Journals Ltd 1996 European Respiratory Journal

Oxygen saturation during daily activities in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease N. Soguel Schenkel, L. Burdet, B. de Muralt, J.W. Fitting Oxygen saturation during daily activities in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. N. Soguel Schenkel, L. Burdet, B. de Muralt, J.W. Fitting. ERS Journals Ltd 1996. ABSTRACT: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) fre-quently develop nocturnal oxygen desaturation because of alveolar hypoventila-tion, worsening of ventilation-perfusion mismatch, and sometimes obstructive sleep apnoeas. In contrast, little is known about their oxygen status during the various activities of daily life. The aim of this study was to compare the oxygen saturation profile during day and night, and to assess the influence of different daily activi-ties in COPD. During a rehabilitation programme, we studied 30 patients with moderate-to-severe COPD (median forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) 37 % of pre-dicted), without marked hypoxaemia (median arterial oxygen tension (Pa,O2) 9.