Normal ranges for arm ergometry
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development of normal ranges for cardiopulmonary exercise testing performed using arm ergometry.
IRAS ID
226248
Contact name
Joanna Shakespeare
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
UHCW NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Summary of Research
Patients having surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysms, gastric cancer, kidney transplantation and lung cancer are often assessed for fitness for surgery using cardiopulmonary exercise testing. Currently this is routinely undertaken by the use of a cycle ergometer or a treadmill. The use of cardiopulmonary exercise testing to assess surgical fitness is significantly on the rise as it provides the surgeon and anaesthetist with information on the surgical risk and also aids risk stratification for post-operative care enabling some patients to be managed more conservatively post operatively and preventing the requirement or reducing the length of stay in ITU.
There is a cohort of patients requiring surgery that are unable to undertake a cycle ergometer or treadmill exercise test. Reasons include morbid obesity, arthritis, claudication and limb amputations. These patients would be classed as high risk for surgery due to the lack of exercise data for decision making.
There is limited data on the application of arm ergometry in the assessment of surgical risk and more importantly there is a significant lack of data on expected normal values when using an arm ergometer. It is recognised that arm ergometry produces lower values than cycle ergometry or treadmill testing however data is limited. This study aims to identify normal values for exercise test parameters for arm ergometry. This will be achieved by recruiting normal healthy volunteers to perform cardiopulmonary exercise testing using an arm ergometer. In addition they will be asked to undertake a second test using the standard cycle ergometer. Data from the two will be compared.Summary of Results116 participants successfully completed a full cardiopulmonary exercise test on both a cycle ergometer and an arm ergometer. This is the study set provides data for the largest pool of female participants to date. Data obtained was used to develop regression equations to predict an individuals VO2, work rate, peak heart rate and anaerobic threshold. Results obtained by arm cycling were demonstrated to be statistically significantly lower than those obtained using leg cycling confirming findings from previous small sample studies.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
17/WA/0284
Date of REC Opinion
13 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion