Anaesthesia | Recognition of the critically ill patient | Preoperative cardiopulmonary exercise testing

Preoperative cardiopulmonary exercise testing
Session Overview
Description
This session contains a link to the BJA Education article followed by a series of self assessment multiple choice questions.

The article will open in a new window or tab depending on your browser.

CPD credits are awarded by the RCoA for the time spent reading the article and successful completion of the self assessment questions. The pass mark is a score of 80% or more.

A CPD certificate can be printed from the Session Summary page at the end of the session.

Preoperative cardiopulmonary exercise testing. Agnew, Neil. BJA Education, Volume 10, Issue 2, 33-37

• Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) provides a safe, reliable, repeatable, non-invasive, objective, individual assessment of combined pulmonary, cardiac, and circulatory function
• It quantifies the functional ability to respond to the increased metabolic demands of major surgery generating a patient-specific measure of risk
• Anaerobic threshold (AT) marks the onset of anaerobic metabolism as a result of inadequate oxygen delivery and is not altered by patient effort
• It is usually reached half way through an incremental exercise test, has been found to predict postoperative morbidity and mortality, and can help triage the patient to an appropriate postoperative care facility
• Functional walk tests provide a simple alternative measurement of global cardiorespiratory function