Fit Yourself and Take Your Lungs to Heart

Evidence-based recommendations on the clinical use of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in lung and heart disease are presented, with reference to the assessment of exercise intolerance, prognostic assessment and the evaluation of therapeutic interventions (e.g. drugs, supplemental oxygen, exercise training). A commonly used grading system for recommendations in evidence-based guidelines was applied, with the grade of recommendation ranging from A, the highest, to D, the lowest. For symptom-limited incremental exercise, CPET indices, such as peak O(2) uptake (V'O(2)), V'O(2) at lactate threshold, the slope of the ventilation-CO(2) output relationship and the presence of arterial O(2) desaturation, have…