Heart failureEffects of Exercise Training on Myocardial Blood Flow Reserve in Patients With Heart Failure and Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction
Section snippets
Methods
From June 2005 to November 2007, we prospectively enrolled 31 consecutive patients with stable primary heart failure and LV dysfunction who underwent stress RTMCE before and after 4-month exercise-based rehabilitation with medical treatment or medical treatment alone. Inclusion criteria were symptoms of heart failure for ≥1 year,5 optimized medical treatment, and LV ejection fraction <45%. Exclusion criteria were inability to exercise, malignant arrhythmias, ischemic cardiomyopathy, second- or
Results
Of the 31 enrolled patients, 16 were randomized to the trained group and 15 to the control group. Of the 16 patients in the trained group, 1 had intense dyspnea during dipyridamole resulting in stress interruption and 2 did not complete the training program due to noncardiac reasons. Of the 15 patients in the control group, 5 did not agree to repeat RTMCE and cardiopulmonary exercise testing after 4 months and were excluded. The final population was constituted by 23 patients. Their clinical
Discussion
In this study we demonstrated, for the first time, that exercise training in a supervised hospital-based setting resulted in a significant increase of microvascular reserve, despite no improvement in LV ejection fraction in patients with heart failure and LV dysfunction. Heart failure is a major public health problem in the entire world. In 1990, Coats et al11 demonstrated a beneficial effect of exercise training on exercise tolerance, peak oxygen consumption, and symptoms in a crossover trial
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Cited by (0)
This study received a grant from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.