Coronary Artery Disease Effects of Coronary Intervention on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing in Men with Stable Coronary Artery Disease - A Pilot Observation Gen-Min Lin, 1,2 Liang-Wen Sun, 3 Chin-Sheng Lin, 1 Kai-Min Chu 1 and Bing-Hsiean Tzeng 1 Objective: To evaluate whether there is improvement of physiologic response in men with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) receiving percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) compared to those with syndrome X by cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPX). Method: We prospectively enrolled men with effort angina and ischemic treadmill exercise test or thallium-201 myocardial scan from outpatient department for coronary angiography (CAG) from 2007 to 2009. Patients with advanced valvular heart disease and poor ejection fraction by echocardiography were excluded. According to the result of CAG, they were divided into two groups: those receiving PCI (PCI group) and those without obvious stenosis syndrome X patients (syndrome X group). CPX was carried out before and after CAG with an interval of 4 weeks. A series of physiological parameters were obtained, including age, BMI, lipid profiles, biochemical tests, heart rate, blood pressure, VO 2 max, VE/VCO 2 , anaerobic threshold, exercise duration, cardiac output (CO), cardiac power output (CPO), and cardiac reserve. Results: Totally, 20 men, mean age 51.9 year-old, were enrolled in the study. There were significantly lower levels in cardiac reserve and peak exercise CPO before CAG in the PCI patients, but no significant differences between age, BMI, biochemical tests or other parameters obtained from CPX before and after CAG between groups. Conclusion: By CPX, only peak exercise CPO and cardiac reserve before PCI are significantly lower in men with stable CAD, as compared to those with syndrome X. Whether PCI is able to improve CPX remains unclear after this pilot study. Key Words: Cardiopulmonary exercise test · Coronary artery disease · Syndrome X · Coronary angioplasty · Cardiac power output · Cardiac reserve INTRODUCTION There had long been debate regarding whether pa- tients with stable coronary artery disease will benefit from coronary angioplasty until the results of the COURAGE study came out. 1 Those results showed that the outcome of cardiovascular events and all cause mortality were not reduced following coronary inter- ventions (PCI) as compared to intensive medical treat- ment and life modifications in patients with stable an- gina. These findings were contrary to previous studies Acta Cardiol Sin 2009;25:190-200 190 CPX in PCI Original Article Acta Cardiol Sin 2009;25:190-200 Received: May 14, 2009 Accepted: July 14, 2009 1 Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Tri- Service General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; 2 Department of Internal Medicine, Hualien Armed General Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan; 3 De- partment of Nursing, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Dr. Bing-Hsiean Tzeng, Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Tri-Service General Hospital, National Defense Medical Center, No. 325, Section 2, Cheng-Kung Road, Neihu 114, Taipei, Taiwan. Tel: 886-2-8792-7160; Fax: 886-2-8792-7161; E-mail: bhtzeng@yahoo .com