Prostacyclin improves symptoms, exercise tolerance, and survival in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, the difficulty of administration (whether intravenous, subcutaneous, or by inhalation) often causes side effects that can reduce the patient's quality of life and which may sometimes be serious. Bosentan, an orally active endothelin receptor antagonist, improves functional...

Rationale The relationship of functional parameters such as lung mechanics, chest kinematics, metabolism and peripheral and respiratory muscle function with the level of exercise tolerance remains a controversial subject. While it has been previously shown that pulmonary rehabilitation is capable of improving exercise tolerance in patients afflicted by COPD, as expressed by values of 6-minute w...

background: it was hypothesized that the use of pentoxifylline would increase arterial o2 saturation and increase exercise tolerance in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd). methods: we tested this hypothesis in 23 patients with copd and pulmonary hypertension. patients were randomized to receive pentoxifylline or placebo, each for a 12-week period, in a prospective, doubl...

This study documented the effect of inspiratory muscle conditioning in children with cystic fibrosis. Subjects, ages 7 to 14 years, were divided into two groups. The experimental group (n = 10) trained at a high pressure load (> or = 29 cm H2O) and the control group (n = 10) trained at a minimal pressure load (< or = 15 cm H2O), using a threshold loading device. Subjects trained 30 min a day fo...

Among the benefits expected to result from a therapeutic intervention in patients with impaired systemic functioning is an increase in exercise tolerance. For this a constant high-intensity work rate has been shown to provide a more sensitive index of improvement than the maximum work rate, or oxygen uptake, on a symptom-limited incremental test. However, the extremely large variability of the ...

Burn survivors with extensive skin grafts have impaired heat dissipation and thus heat tolerance. This study tested the hypothesis that heat acclimation (HA) improves these factors in this population. Thirty-four burn survivors were stratified into highly [>40% body surface area (BSA) grafted, n = 15] and moderately (17-40% BSA grafted, n = 19) grafted groups. Nine healthy nonburned subjects se...