Cardiopulmonary stress testing in children who have had congenital heart disease surgery. Physical exercise recommendations during school hours

Introduction and objectives: To analyze and discover if stress testing with exhaled gases in children who have had congenital heart surgery is useful so we could make physical exercise recommendations according to heart disease, type of surgery performed, present hemodynamic state and level of exercise practiced. Methods: Prospective study of 108 children, who performed stress testing with exhaled gases, electrocardiogram monitoring and blood pressure. A questionnaire was used to obtain variables concerning heart disease, surgery, present functional condition and level of exercise practiced. Exercise recommendations were given after stress testing, and after a year 35 patients answered a questionnaire. Results: There were significant differences between lesion severity and heart rate at rest and during effort, systolic pressure at rest and during effort, oxygen uptake, oxygen pulse, carbon dioxide production and test duration. A relationship was observed between level of weekly exercise and greater oxygen uptake and test duration, but this was not observed with the underlying heart disease. We observed that best performance occurred with fast repairing for 59 children with cyanotic heart disease. Increased exercise level was recommended for 48 children. Conclusions: The cardiopulmonary function study allows us to examine the physical performance of children who have had congenital heart surgery and provides us with important data so that we can recommend better physical exercise planning. © 2011 Sociedad Española de Cardiología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L. All rights reserved.