RESULTS
Patient characteristics are shown in Table 1. More than 60% of patients, mostly men, were obese or overweight. The mean age of the study population was 54.1 ± 7.1 years.
Table 2 shows heart rates and workload values during the first and the second series of 12 training sessions.
Among resting spiroergometric parameters, a significant increase in forced vital capacity (FVC) was observed, from 4.22 ± 0.96 L at baselines to 4.36 ± 0.98 L after 24 training sessions (p = 0.04). Significant increases were also noted for peak expiratory flow and the forced expiratory volume in 1 s to FVC ratio (FEV1/FVC) (Table 3).
Table 4 shows selected CPET variables. Of note, parameters of exercise capacity such as exercise duration on a treadmill, workload (VO2peak), VO2AT, minute ventilation, and energy expenditure expressed in metabolic equivalents (MET) increased significantly after 24 training sessions. All
these parameters except for VO2peak also increased significantly during the first and the second series of 12 training sessions. The difference in VO2peak between CPET after 12 and 24 training sessions did not reach statistical significance.