[Cardiopulmonary capacity of patients with congenital heart defects in childhood, adolescence and adulthood].

Cardiopulmonary exercise capacity is a significant criterion of life quality. The evaluation of the exercise capacity is important to answer patient-questions concerning every day activity, choice of profession, sports-activity etc. We performed cardiopulmonary exercise testing in 38 patients (age 33.6 +/- 12.0 years, 18 women, 20 men) with different congenital heart disease (5 after surgical repair of tetralogy of fallot, 2 after Mustard-operation in transposition of the great arteries (TGA), 1 single ventricle, 14 atrial septal defect (ASD), 8 ventricular septal defect (VSD), 8 pulmonary valve stenosis (PS)) during outpatient routine control. All tests were performed on upright bicycle with continuous ramp program of 20 Watt increase/minute. Ventilatory values as O2-uptake, CO2-production, minute ventilation (VE) were measured breath-by-breath. Max. VO2 was reduced as average value for every patient group (tetralogy of fallot 60.2 +/- 20.3% pred., TGA 53.0 +/- 0.0% pred., single ventricle 35% pred., closed ASD 71.9 +/- 23.8% pred., ASD 62.7 +/- 30.0% pred., VSD 64.1 +/- 11.7% pred., PS 73.2 +/- 16.0% pred.). Anaerobic threshold was reduced in tetralogy of fallot (35.9 +/- 12.2% pred. max. VO2) and in single ventricle (28.3% pred. max. VO2). In comparison with clinical classification of exercise capacity we found for max. VO2 differences in 23/38 patients. 22/23 patients reported no exercise limitation but had reduced max. VO2. One patient had a normal max. VO 2 but complaints of exercise dyspnoea. For anaerobic threshold 18/38 patients had discrepancies in objective and subjective estimation of their exercise capacity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)