Introduction: Cardiopulmonary exercise testing re-presents the gold standard in functional capacity assessment, being useful also for the initiation of indi-vidualized cardiac rehabilitation programs.
Objective: Our study aimed to assess the usefulness of cardiopulmonary exercise testing for patients with cardiovascular pathology and some noncardiovascular comorbidities (e.g obstructive sleep apnea), addressed to cardiac rehabilitation.
Methods: T he study included 141 patients (108 men and 33 women) admitted to Clinic of Cardiovascular Rehabilitation of Recovery Hospital Iasi, assessed be-fore the initiation of cardiovascular rehabilitation pro-gram, by cardiopulmonary exercise test, measuring the most important parameters such as: maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max), oxygen uptake at the level of anae-robic threshold (AT), respiratory exchange ratio (RER), oxygen pulse (OP). The relation between clinic-patho-genic profile and ergospirometric parameters were assessed.
Results: T he average age of enrolled subjects was 57.9±9.3, and cardiovascular pathology included: co-ronary artery disease 48.2%, myocardial infarction history 24%, hypertension 62.4%, heart failure 12.1%, coronary artery bypass graft or coronary angioplasty history 25.5%. The diagnosis of obstructive sleep ap-nea was associated in 18.4%. Only in 17% of included subjects the test reached the maximal level, objectively demonstrated by a value of RER above 1.1. In patients with coronary artery disease, significantly lower di-astolic blood pressure values were seen during exer-cise (p=0.027). Patients with heart failure had signifi-cantly lower values of AT normalized for body mass (p=0.016). The history of myocardial infarction associated significantly lower levels of VO₂ max (p=0.005). In patients with obstructive sleep apnea, among other comorbidities, values of AT normalized for body mass were significantly lower (p=0.002).
Conclusions: Cardiopulmonary exercise testing has an important place in the assessment of patients addressed to cardiac rehabilitation, particularly in those associa-ting comorbidities such as obstructive sleep apnea.