The Usefulness of Impedance Cardiography for Predicting Beneficial Effects of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Patients with Heart Failure

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 VO₂ 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.