BACKGROUND Exercise impairment is common in subjects with asbestosis. Arterial oxygen desaturation during exercise is an important contributor to exercise limitation. The International Labour Office (ILO) classification of plain chest radiographs correlates with resting pulmonary function, but its value in predicting abnormal ventilatory responses to exercise, including desaturation, has not be...

1. To clarify the relationship between nocturnal oxygen desaturation and erythropoietin production in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, we determined arterial oxygen saturation and serum immunoreactive erythropoietin levels over 24 h in eight patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and in nine normal subjects. 2. In the normal subjects, there was a significant cir...

struck with the complexity of the relationship between the frequency, type and duration of apnea, the degree of arterial desaturation, and the type and incidence of cardiac dysrhythmias. Recent investigations have demonstrated quite different relationships between arterial desaturation associated with apnea, and concomitant ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias. Guilleminault et aP found...

PURPOSE Cerebral desaturation occurs frequently in patients undergoing one-lung ventilation for thoracic surgery. The mechanism of this desaturation is unclear regarding its etiology. The objective of this study was to investigate whether or not decreases in cerebral oxygen saturation associated with one-lung ventilation were a consequence of decreased cardiac output. METHODS A blinded observ...