Effects of gender difference on exercise capacity in patients with moderate and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

Objective To compare gender differences in exercise capacity of patients with moderate and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).Methods We examined 151 pulmonary function tests (PFT) and incremental cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) performed in patients with moderate and severe COPD.They were divided into stage Ⅱ and stage Ⅲ COPD group.We enrolled 43 healthy subjects who were matched by age,sex,height,and weight as a control group.We measured FEV1,FVC,Peak Load,Peak (V)O2,Peak HR,Peak (V)O2/HR,M (V)E,M (V)E/MVV et al.We compared these results between different stages and genders.Results Women in stage Ⅱ and stage Ⅲ had higher Peak (V)O2％ predicted and Peak (V)O2/HR％predicted than men (P＜0.05).There was a significant reduction in exercise capacity for men in stage Ⅲ compared with stage Ⅱ (P＜0.0001),however,there was no significant difference between stage Ⅲ and stage Ⅱ for women (P=0.246).Conclusions Male patients with moderate and severe COPD have a more severe reduction in exercise capacity than female and smoking may be a significant factor contributed to the difference. Key words: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Gender; Exercise capacity; Cardiopulmonary exercise testing