Purpose and method Many post-COVID patients suffer from dyspnea on exertion. To visualize exercise-induced dyspnea, a post-COVID patient and a healthy volunteer underwent an exercise test on a treadmill under stress relevant to everyday life monitored by electrical impedance tomography (EIT). Results The lung-healthy volunteer showed an even ventilation distribution throughout the assessment, a large ventilated area, and a butterfly-like lung shape with a convex lung rim. The post-COVID patient showed clear differences in the ventilated area compared to the control subject. During exercise, a constantly changing picture of differently ventilated areas is shown. However, especially the anterior regions were under-ventilated and larger areas were partially absent from ventilation. Overall, uncoordinated breathing and an uneven distribution of ventilation dominated the findings. Conclusion EIT is suitable for visualizing disturbed ventilation of the lungs, both at rest and under stress. The potential as a diagnostic tool in dyspnea assessment should be investigated. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s15010-023-02062-3.
【저자키워드】 Electrical impedance tomography, Post-COVID, Dyspnea, long-COVID, EIT,