Would be the minute ventilation variability an alternative to the dichotomous diagnosis of exercise oscillatory ventilation?

Abstract

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): CAPES and FAPERGS. Background Exercise oscillatory ventilation (EOV) is an abnormal ventilatory phenomenon observed in chronic heart failure (HF) patients usually defined as EOV-positive or EOV-negative based on a dichotomous diagnosis. Minute ventilation variability (vVE) can quantify the presence of these oscillations and assist the prognosis of patients. Purpose To analyse the sensitivity and specificity of vVE to predict 2-year all-causes of death in HF patients. Methods Data from 233 cardiopulmonary exercise tests from HF patients performed between 2011 and 2014 at an Italian heart centre were analysed. The vVE was defined by the standard deviation (SD) of VE normalized by the number of respiratory cycles (SD/n) during the exercise tests. The cut-off to predict 2-year mortality was determined by the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results Thirty-five deaths were registered at 2-years. The ROC curve indicated ≤ 54.9 as the better cut-off for vVE (32 deaths were registered in follow-up; Figure 1). The relative risk was 3.9 (1.3 to 12.4) with a hazard ratio of 2.7 (1.3 to 5.6) for 2-year mortality. Conclusion The vVE appears to be a sensitive alternative to quantify EOV and stratify high-risk cases from 2-year all-cause mortality.