Congenital heart diseaseCohort study
Cardiorespiratory fitness in children with surgically corrected congenital heart disease: Exercise testing profiles and biventricular function
- prospective recruitment of consecutive children (cross-sectional study with regression analyses)
Authors' conclusion
Reduced cardiorespiratory fitness in children with surgically corrected CHD encompasses impaired cardiovascular, ventilatory, and gas exchange responses to exercise. Early anaerobic threshold, chronotropic incompetence, and subclinical systolic dysfunction on imaging are associated with reduced maximal exercise capacity, indicating contributions from both cardiac dysfunction and deconditioning. Integrating imaging with CPET may improve differentiation between cardiac and noncardiac contributors to exercise limitation.
Study context
- Population
- Children with surgically corrected biventricular congenital heart disease (CHD)consecutive children with CHD
- Participants
- 100 children
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
̇VO₂max
73.9%pred ± 14.2%pred
anaerobic threshold (̇VO₂AT)
74.7%pred ± 16.6%pred
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Imaging systolic function
- left ventricular global longitudinal strain
- −17.5% ± 2.5%
- tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion
- 13.1 mm, interquartile range 11.0 to 15.4
Independent predictors of ̇VO₂max
- ̇VO₂AT, maximal heart rate, global longitudinal strain, and tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion independently predicted ̇VO₂max
- R² = 68.1%; P < .001
- ̇VO₂AT the strongest predictor
Original publication
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it