AIMS This study is the first prospective randomized trial evaluating the efficacy of an antiarrhythmic surgical procedure in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation undergoing mitral valve replacement. METHODS AND RESULTS Thirty consecutive patients with chronic atrial fibrillation undergoing mitral valve replacement were randomized for an additional modified MAZE-operation using intra-oper...

This study examined patterns of responses for physiological and perceptual variables during cycle ergometry at a constant rate of perceived exertion (RPE) within the moderate and heavy exercise intensity domains. Nineteen (mean age 21.3 ± 0.5 years; 43.4 ± 2.0 mL·kg−1·min−1 O ) moderately trained cyclists performed an incremental test to exhaustion and two 60 min constant RPE rides at the RPE c...

BACKGROUND During circulatory arrest, effective external chest compression (ECC) is a key element for patient survival. In 2005, international emergency medical organisations changed their recommended compression-ventilation ratio (CVR) from 15:2 to 30:2 to acknowledge the vital importance of ECC. We hypothesised that physical fitness, biometric data and gender can influence the quality of ECC....

Incremental cardiopulmonary exercise testing work rate ideally increases linearly to the subject's tolerance within approximately 10 min. Widely used treadmill protocols often yield shorter exercise times in debilitated patients. We compared a recently described treadmill protocol featuring linear work rate increase, weight adjustments and a priori exercise tolerance estimates with standard cyc...

UNLABELLED To assess quantitatively regional nutritive muscular blood flow in patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD), we evaluated the utility of PET with 15O-water. METHODS Eight healthy volunteers and 16 patients with angiographically proven PVD were studied. Regional blood flow of the calf was measured with 15O-water PET during rest, after intra-arterial infusion of prostaglandin ...

BACKGROUND Hypothyroidism is regarded as a risk factor for coronary artery disease. Possible factors involved in this association are hyperlipidaemia and hypertension, both occurring with increased frequency in hypothyroid patients. The aim of our study was to evaluate signs/symptoms of cardiac ischaemia in untreated hypothyroid patients without angina pectoris, since this has never been perfor...

Clinical evaluation of the pattern and timing of breathing during submaximal exercise can be valuable for the identification of the mechanical ventilatory consequences of different disease processes and for assessing the efficacy of certain interventions. Sedentary individuals (60 male/60 female, aged 20-80 yrs) were randomly selected from >8,000 subjects and submitted to ramp incremental cycle...

A total of 24 subjects with diagnosis of spina bifida, 24 subjects (females, n= 12), ages 17 to 72 years, participated in a one-time arm ergometry exercise stress test. The aim of this study was to investigate the construct and concurrent validity of two rating of perceived exertion scales, the Borg 6-20 Scale and a newly designed WHEEL Scale in adolescents and adults with spina bifida. The res...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether consumer-level activity trackers can estimate wheelchair strokes and arm ergometer revolutions. Thirty able-bodied participants wore three consumer-level activity trackers (Garmin VivoFit, FitBit Flex, and Jawbone UP24) on the wrist. Participants propelled a wheelchair at fixed frequencies (30, 45 and 60 strokes per minute (spm)) three minutes e...

All of the most widely-cited studies for the prediction of maximum exercise responses have utilized either volunteers or referred subjects. Therefore, selection bias, with overestimation of the reference values, is a likely consequence. In order to establish a set of predictive equations for the gas exchange, ventilatory and cardiovascular responses to maximum ramp-incremental cycle ergometry, ...