Tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion is related to performance at six minute walking test in patients with heart failure undergoing exercise training

摘要

Reduced exercise tolerance is a symptom experienced by the majority of patients with heart failure (HF). Exercise training (ET) has been established as adjuvant therapy in these patients due its broad spectrum of effects including improvement of exercise tolerance and quality of life [1]. However, some patients performing ET programs show limited improvement in exercise capacity. This is an important point because the lack of benefit to ET seems to be related to a poorer clinical outcome [2]. Despite that some possible causes have been recently elucidated [3], mechanisms underlying the so called resistance to ET remain largely unknown. According to previous hemodynamic studies [4,5] pulmonary circulation and right ventricular (RV) function are important determinants of exercise tolerance in HF patients but RV function is not routinary assessed during ET.