Exercise Training in Patients with Chronic Respiratory Diseases: Are Cardiovascular Comorbidities and Outcomes Taken into Account?—A Systematic Review

• Main Authors: Ana Machado, Kirsten Quadflieg, Ana Oliveira, Charly Keytsman, Alda Marques, Dominique Hansen, Chris Burtin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-09-01
• Series: Journal of Clinical Medicine
• Subjects: exercise; chronic lung disease; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; COPD; asthma; interstitial lung disease; ILD; cardiovascular comorbidities; cardiovascular outcomes
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/8/9/1458

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and interstitial lung diseases (ILD) frequently suffer from cardiovascular comorbidities (CVC). Exercise training is a cornerstone intervention for the management of these conditions, however recommendations on tailoring programmes to patients suffering from respiratory diseases and CVC are scarce. This systematic review aimed to identify the eligibility criteria used to select patients with COPD, asthma or ILD and CVC to exercise programmes; assess the impact of exercise on cardiovascular outcomes; and identify how exercise programmes were tailored to CVC. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane were searched. Three reviewers extracted the data and two reviewers independently assessed the quality of studies with the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. MetaXL 5.3 was used to calculate the individual and pooled effect sizes (ES). Most studies (58.9%) excluded patients with both stable and unstable CVC. In total, 26/42 studies reported cardiovascular outcomes. Resting heart rate was the most reported outcome measure (<i>n</i> = 13) and a small statistically significant effect (<i>ES</i> = &#8722;0.23) of exercise training on resting heart rate of patients with COPD was found. No specific adjustments to exercise prescription were described. Few studies have included patients with CVC. There was a lack of tailoring of exercise programmes and limited effects were found. Future studies should explore the effect of tailored exercise programmes on relevant outcome measures in respiratory patients with CVC.