VE/VCO2 slope in cardiopulmonary exercise testing was associated with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction in patients with reduced ejection fraction

Abstract

Background: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (EF) remains a poor prognosis as same as heart failure with reduced EF. Peak oxygen uptake (VO2) by cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is a useful parameter for predicting cardiovascular diseases prognosis. Furthermore, though there are some reports that CPET parameters are associated with indicators of diastolic dysfunction, each of these indicators has some limitations. Recently, recommendations for the evaluation of left ventricular diastolic function by echocardiography were reported from the ASE/EACVI. However , no reports have examined the association between exercise tolerance indices and diastolic dysfunction based on these recommended variables. Purpose: To examine the relationship between peak VO2 and diastolic dysfunction using the recommendation from ASE/EACVI in cardiovascular diseases patients with preserved EF Methods: We recruited 214 patients who were performed both CPX and echocardiography. EF ≥50% was 99 patients. All patients underwent 0W warm-up and 10W ramp on an upright electrical bicycle ergometer. Dias-tolic dysfunction was assessed using the recommendations for the evaluation of diastolic function by ASE/EACVI. We used abnormal cutoff values