Cardiac rehabilitation improved oxygen uptake measured by cardiopulmonary exercise test in patients after aortic valve surgery

¹ Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, 510080, China

² Cardiac Rehabilitation Department, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, 102 Zhongshan Road, Guangzhou, 510080, China

³ General Division, Guangdong Geriatric Institute, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, 510080, China

⁴ Department of Cardiology, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coronary Heart Disease Prevention, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, 510080, China

^*Correspondence: hexuyu97@126.com (Xuyu He); 13826056262@139.com (Lan Guo)
^#These authors contributed equally.

Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2019, 20(1), 47–52; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm.2019.01.3183

Published: 30 March 2019

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Abstract

Evidence for cardiac rehabilitation after valve surgery remains scarce. We retrospectively enrolled consecutive patients undergoing aortic valve surgery. The intervention group consisted of physical exercise for 3 months after surgery, while the control group underwent usual care without physical exercise. It was observed that cardiac rehabilitation has a beneficial effect on the peak oxygen uptake compared to the control group (24.2 ml/kg/min vs. 20.6 ml/kg/min) as measured by cardiopulmonary exercise testing 3 months after surgery. There was no significant difference observed in New York Heart Association class I or II between groups. Conversely, the intervention group underperformed the SF-36 Mental Component Scale at 3 months (50.3 vs. 53.8 points).

Keywords

Heart valve surgery

rehabilitation

physical exercise

cardiopulmonary exercise test

Short-Form 36

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Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. Print ISSN 1530-6550 Electronic ISSN 2153-8174