Exercise time: A possible source of misleading results during long‐term pharmacological studies by multiple stress testing in coronary artery disease

Abstract

The assessment of chronic pharmacological of stable angina requires serial exercise stress. It is well known that exercise tolerance can be by the training effect of performing repeated. Our study investigated the values of heart rate, blood pressure, rate‐pressure product, and of exercise at 0.1 mV ST depression during exercise the same parameters plus the maximal ST‐segment at peak exercise, collected from three tests. The first and second were performed at one‐week before, and the third (75 days after the first), was after a double‐blind study with a drug versus. We found a significant increase of exercise at 0.1 mV ST depression and at peak exercise, while of 12 patients increased exercise duration from the to the third test. Individual variability of exercise showed increasing values, ranging from 0 to 71% vs. third test). In contrast, the ratio of heart rate and blood pressure did not differ between the tests. data criticized the use of mean values of exercise time pharmacological studies; moreover, individual could affect results independently of drug or placebo. These findings should be taken into in order to exclude misleading results. Copyright © 1989 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.