We aimed to assess the effectiveness of exercise training in patients with bronchiectasis in terms of exercise capacity, pulmonary function, and quality of life.

PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining pulmonary rehabilitation to treat bronchiectasis, and the search timeline was from inception through November 2020. Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data, evaluated the risk of bias in the included studies, and used Review Manager 5.3 software to perform the meta-analysis. The primary outcomes were incremental shuttle walk distance (ISWD) and 6-minute walk distance (6-MWD) at 8 weeks. The secondary outcomes were forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) score, and Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) score at 8 weeks.

A total of five RCTs with a total of 198 patients were included. A pooled analysis showed that improvements in ISWD (mean difference [MD] = 92.47 m, 95% confidence interval [CI] 49.87, 135.08; P < 0.0001), 6-MWD (MD = 31.01 m, 95% CI 1.60, 60.42; P = 0.04), and FEV1 (MD = 0.08 L, 95% CI 0.04, 0.12; P = 0.0002) in the pulmonary rehabilitation group were more marked than in the control group. There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the improvement in SGRQ and LCQ scores.

Pulmonary rehabilitation improves exercise capacity and pulmonary function (specifically FEV1) in patients with bronchiectasis. However, due to limitations in the number and quality of current studies, the above conclusions need to be verified in future research.