The usefulness of impedance cardiography for predicting beneficial effects of cardiac rehabilitation in patients with heart failure

Abstract

Aim. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an important part of heart failure (HF) treatment. The aim of this paper was to evaluate if thoracic fluid content (TFC) measured by impedance cardiography (ICG) is a useful parameter for predicting the outcome of CR. Methods. Fifty HF patients underwent clinical and noninvasive haemodynamic (TFC) assessments before and after 8-week CR. Results. As a result of CR, the patients' exercise tolerance improved, especially in terms of peak VO2 (18.7 versus 20.8 mL × kg-1 × min-1; P = 0.025). TFC was found to identify patients with significantly improved peak VO2 after CR. "High TFC" patients (TFC > 27.0 kOhm-1), compared to those of "low TFC" (TFC < 27.0 kOhm-1), were found to have more pronounced increase in peak VO2 (1.3 versus 3.1 mL × kg-1 × min-1; P = 0.011) and decrease in TFC (4.0 versus 0.7 kOhm-1; P < 0.00001). On the other hand, the patients with improved peak VO2 (n = 32) differed from those with no peak VO 2 improvement in terms of higher baseline TFC values (28.4 versus 25.3 kOhm-1; P = 0.039) and its significant decrease after CR (2.7 versus 0.2 kOhm-1; P = 0.012). Conclusions. TFC can be a useful parameter for predicting beneficial effects of CR worth including in the process of patients' qualification for CR. © 2013 Grzegorz Gielerak et al.