4. Discussion
In this study we performed a comprehensive assessment
of cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness and body composition
in a relatively large and homogeneous group of patients
recently treated with Auto-SCT, using well accepted and gold
standard measures. Overall, the cardiorespiratory and muscular
fitness and body composition of these patients were
compromised.
The VO2peak of the total sample was 74% of the predicted values
for healthy sedentary people (76% for MM patients, 71% for
lymphoma patients). This is higher than the 62% reported in the
study of Tuchman et al.13 among 22 MM patients who were on
average 17 months after Auto-SCT. Possible explanations for these
dissimilar findings include the lower BMI of our patients (29.1 vs
25.4),the exclusion of patients on beta-blockers (36% vs 0%) and the
lower percentage of smokers (23 vs 13%) in our study. We located
the VT at 70% of the VO2peak, which is relatively high when compared
to the normal values for healthy sedentary adults (40–60% of
VO2peak)28 and compared to the 40% reported in a previous study
among patients treated with Allo-SCT.29 In general, a high VT indicates
high cardiorespiratory fitness,23 however in