Patient characteristics
Table 1 summarises patient characteristics including demographics and
cardiopulmonary performance (spirometry and CPET) with a total of 127
patients examined. Thirty-nine patients (31 %) were classified as obese
with fifty-six (44 %) overweight. As anticipated, these patients were
poorly conditioned with a V̇ O2PEAK that was on
average almost 20 % lower than that predicted for age, sex-matched
healthy controls with forty-five patients (35 %) exhibiting aV̇ O2-AT <11 mL/kg/min.V̇ O2-AT could not be determined in eighteen
patients (14 %).