Study suggests exercise capacity can predict 90-day survival following liver transplantation

摘要

A patient's preoperative cardiopulmo-nary exercise capacity may be a specific prediction of 90-day survival following liver transplantation according to a recent study published in the journal Liver Transplantation. If the association is confirmed in larger samples, the noninvasive method for assessing cardiovascular fitness could go on to aid in the selection of patients for transplant, and interventions to improve fitness could be used to improve the mortality rate. In the UK-based study, 182 patients with cirrhosis underwent cardiopulmo-nary exercise testing (CPET), with 165 completing CPET to reveal the anaerobic threshold (AT), a measure of the submaximal exercise parameter. Of the 60 patients that then underwent liver transplant, the AT was significantly higherfor survivors than nonsurvivors, an association with mortality that remained after multivariate analysis.