Update: Interim Guidance for Health Care Providers regarding the Management Approach of Patients with Suspected E-cigarette, or Vaping, Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (EVALI)

Date: Thursday, November 21, 2019

Time: 2:00–3:00p.m. ET

Overview

CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state and local health departments, and public health and clinical stakeholders continue to investigate a national outbreak of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette), or vaping, product use–associated lung injury (EVALI).

EVALI remains a diagnosis of exclusion because, at present, no specific test or marker exists for its diagnosis, and evaluation should be guided by clinical judgment. Because patients with EVALI can present with symptoms similar to influenza or other respiratory infections (e.g., fever, cough, headache, myalgias, or fatigue), it might be difficult to differentiate EVALI from influenza or CAP (community-acquired pneumonia) on initial presentation, and EVALI may cooccur with respiratory infections. A large number of patients will be presenting to healthcare facilities with respiratory symptoms during the winter season who may not meet criteria for hospital admission, and this will be happening in the context of a national outbreak of EVALI.

During this COCA Call, U.S. health care providers will learn recommendations for managing patients with suspected or known EVALI when respiratory infections such as influenza are more prevalent in the community, as published in MMWR on November 19, 2019.