Does exercise training improve exercise capacity and left ventricular diastolic filling in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy?
Exercise training improves exercise capacity and LV diastolic filling in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and abnormal LV relaxation, and Doppler echocardiography may help identify patients who will benefit.
These data demonstrate that ET induces significant improvement in exercise capacity only in patients with DCM and a pattern of abnormal LV relaxation. The improvement in peak VO2 is significantly correlated with an increase in peak early filling rate and peak filling rate as well as a decrease in atrial filling rate. Doppler echocardiography may be a valuable tool in the prognostic assessment of patients with DCM who will benefit from exercise training.
Belardinelli et al. (1995) studied this question.