Ricerc@Sapienza

Background: Effective prevention and control strategies are mandatory to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Main text: The Italian Pediatric Respiratory Society promotes a series of new recommendations that should be followed in pulmonary function testing laboratories during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: Pulmonary function testing should be performed in children with chronic lung disease only if it is needed to guide management and limited to the necessary tests, namely spirometry.

Aims: Exercise-derived parameters, specifically peak exercise oxygen uptake (peak VO 2 ) and minute ventilation/carbon dioxide relationship slope (VE/VCO 2 slope), have a pivotal prognostic value in heart failure (HF). It is unknown how the prognostic threshold of peak VO 2 and VE/VCO 2 slope has changed over the last 20 years in parallel with HF prognosis improvement. Methods and results: Data from 6083 HF patients (81% male, age 61 ± 13 years), enrolled in the MECKI score database between 1993 and 2015, were retrospectively analysed.