Effect of high-intensity interval training on progression of cardiac allograft vasculopathy
Section snippets
Patients and settings
Briefly, we prospectively recruited 57 clinically stable HTx patients from a cohort of 192 potential participants during their annual follow-up between 2009 and 2010 (Figure 1). The inclusion criteria were: age >18 years; 1 to 8 years after HTx; optimal medical treatment; stable clinical condition; ability to perform maximal exercise test on a treadmill; willingness and ability to perform a 1-year HIIT program, not far from their home; and provision of written informed consent. Exclusion
Results
The study population (Figure 1) has been described previously.13 For the total sample (n = 43) the mean age was 52 ± 16 (range 19 to 71) years, 67% were men, and the mean time after HTx was 4.0 ± 2.2 years. Baseline clinical characteristics are shown in Table 1, with no differences between the HIIT and the control group.
Discussion
Prevention and treatment of CAV is a major clinical challenge in the management of patients after HTx. We have previously shown that HIIT allows for significantly greater improvement in functional exercise capacity as measured by VO2peak in HTx recipients. To the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first to show that HIIT, among stable HTx recipients, results in a significantly impaired rate of quantitative CAV progression, as assessed by IVUS. Our findings further suggest that,
Disclosure statement
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
We thank the HTx nurses, Anne Relbo and Ingelin Grov, for their genuine interest in the project and their professional and practical help.
This work was funded by a grant from the South-East Health Region in Norway (Helse Sør-Øst) and further supported by a gift from an anonymous benefactor.
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