Several reports have suggested that natriuretic peptides plasma levels reflect exercise-induced increase in LVFP, but they still have significant limitations.
In this context, the current findings suggest that the reductions in longitudinal LV strain and E′LV may not explicitly represent reduction of the inherent myocardial contractility but might rather reflect exercise-induced changes in hemodynamic loading.
Even though we found a mean CK-MB to total CK ratio <3%, which has been suggested to reflect exercise-stimulated skeletal muscle degradation rather than isolated release of CK-MB (Lucia et al., 1999), we cannot rule out the possibility that the increased fraction of CK-MB may still indicate some degree of myocardial damage.
During endurance training, haematological changes reflect exercise-induced stress, which depends on increased catecholamine and cortisol levels; these hormones promote the mobilisation of splenic erythrocytes and the release of the neutrophil marginal pool and lymphocyte to tissues and organs, resulting in neutrophilic leukocytosis and an increased N L ratio [ 34- 38].
Univariate linear regression was performed to evaluate possible associations between wMRT and measures reflecting exercise capacity (VO2SS, 6MWD).
Among them, treadmill exercise time and METs reflect the exercise performance directly and represent the cardiopulmonary function indirectly.
The relatively weak response in the exercise group in the present study may reflect that exercise was self-directed but with telephone support.
This does not reflect controlled exercise and respiratory training used in previous clinical studies.
Although the degree of airflow limitation has been used as one of the most important criteria of COPD severity, it does not always reflect dyspnea, exercise capacity, quality of life, or exacerbation frequency [ 33].
The question is whether this can be explained by impaired physical condition of ECMO-treated patients or by the fact that the reference values established by Binkhorst and colleagues insufficiently reflect the exercise performance of contemporary healthy Dutch children.
The instrument has a 7-point response scale (range 1 7, higher scores reflect higher exercise self-efficacy), but only the first-, middle- and last response options are worded: "Not certain at all", "Maybe" and "Very certain", and a mean score is calculated.
