Clinical use of the proposed VO2peak/THV ratio
It is expected that the VO2peak/THV ratio will drop in the presence of HF, since cardiac output, and consequently VO2peak, is disproportional to the metabolic requirements of the peripheral tissue in the situation of a failing heart. However, when and in which stage of HF development the VO2peak/THV ratio decreases is not known. A decreased VO2peak/THV ratio could potentially be seen in patients with no symptoms at rest and in the absence of significant structural cardiac abnormalities.
Currently, maximal exercise test with analysis of respiratory gases and analysis of VO
2peak is predominantly used in patients with terminal HF under consideration for heart transplantation [
7]. The present study suggests that assessment of VO
2peak in relation to THV for determination of a VO
2peak/THV ratio can be of potential use even in non-terminal and early stage HF, maybe even before the patient exhibit symptoms, such as in stage A HF [
4]. Another possible application of a VO
2peak/THV ratio is in management of patients with a history of endurance training and a sudden change in exercise capacity. These patients might perform within normal limits during a maximal exercise test with analysis of respiratory gases when compared to age and gender matched controls. However, in relation to THV the working capacity might be decreased which would be detected by a low VO
2peak/THV ratio as an indicator of early stage HF. This is supported by the findings that the healthy volunteers and the HF patients with overlapping VO
2peak showed a significant difference in VO
2peak/THV ratio with almost no overlap, indicating that the ratio has additional diagnostic value. Furthermore, LVEF was not statistically significant different between the two overlapping groups. Thus, VO
2peak/THV provides diagnostic information beyond LVEF.
Even though there was a significant difference between control subjects and HF patients with regard to LVEF in the present study, almost 30% of the patients had normal LVEF. However, these patients had significantly lower VO2peak/THV ratio than the control subjects with almost no overlap. Thus, VO2peak/THV ratio may also be used as a marker of HF in patients with preserved systolic LV function.
Heart failure is often described based on clinical symptoms as being mild, moderate, or severe. Mild HF is used for patients with no significant physical limitations due to dyspnoea or fatigue and severe HF is used for patients who are markedly symptomatic with a need for frequent medical attention. Moderate HF is used for the remaining patients. For clinical management of HF patients and for randomized clinical trials, the New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional classification [
22,
23] is often employed. However, the accuracy of diagnosing HF by clinical means alone is often inadequate [
2,
3]. Hence, there is a need for objective measures of cardiac performance in order to determine the efficiency of different therapeutic strategies in randomized clinical trials.
The clinical use a VO
2peak/THV ratio could potentially complement commonly used cardiac diagnostic biomarkers such as ECG and biochemical markers. A commonly used biochemical marker for severity of HF is pro-BNP, which has been shown to correlate with the severity of HF [
24,
25]. In the present study, the VO
2peak/THV ratio was shown to correlate with pro-BNP, indicating that the ratio can potentially serve as a measure for severity of HF.
Normalization of peak oxygen uptake to cardiac dimension rather than body weight
Lower limits for VO
2peak are usually determined in relation to body weight and used to determine if a patient is suitable for heart transplantation or not [
26,
27]. However, the present study show a considerable variability in VO
2peak for a given body weight (Figure
2B). Total heart volume, however, was shown to be closely correlated to VO
2peak in healthy volunteers and athletes but not in HF patients. Thus, for the non-failing heart, the VO
2peak/THV ratio is preserved in the presence of a physiologically enlarged heart, whereas for the failing heart the VO
2peak/THV ratio is not preserved as THV increases due to pathological enlargement of the heart. This suggests that VO
2peak should be normalized to THV and not to body weight. This is in line with a recent paper by Saltin et al [
28] and experimental animal studies [
9,
10] showing that VO
2peak is determined primarily by cardiac dimension and not peripheral factors such as the efficiency of oxygen uptake in peripheral tissue [
29]. This is also supported by the present study showing that a VO
2peak/THV ratio is significantly lower in HF compared to healthy volunteers and athletes even after normalizing for hemoglobin levels.
Determination of total heart volume
In the present study THV was determined by CMR, which is considered the gold standard for assessing cardiac dimensions and function [
13]. In situations when CMR is not available or is contraindicated, i.e. in patients with biventricular pacing, THV could potentially also be determined by low dose-cardiac CT, preferably gated. However, non-gated examinations would also be possible if CT thorax is performed for other reasons, since THV varies little during the cardiac cycle [
15,
17,
18]. Three dimensional echocardiography might potentially also be used to determine THV, although this technique may suffer from incomplete coverage of the tissue within the pericardium. By using the THV, enlargement of all cardiac chambers including the atria is considered. Enlargement of the left atrium has been shown to provide prognostic value in HF patients with normal LVEF [
30].
Limitations
The results of the present study should be interpreted in the light of some limitations. The number of patients in the present study is limited and the patients were retrospectively included with clinically diagnosed HF and clinically determined etiology. Thus, no specific HF inclusion criteria based on biochemical markers, ECG or echocardiographic variables were applied. Furthermore, the patients had different etiologies and different stages of HF. However, this pilot study can be considered a proof of the concept study for determining a VO2peak/THV ratio as an objective measure of cardiac capacity, independent of HF etiology.
Due to symptoms during the exercise test, HF patients might not reach VO2peak representative of the individual's actual maximal oxygen uptake capacity. For this reason VO2peak is referred to as peak and not maximal oxygen uptake in the present study.
There was a significant difference in mean age between the patient population and the control groups. However, the slight decrease in VO2peak/THV ratio found with increased age in the healthy volunteers (21-65 years) is negligible compared to the decrease in VO2peak/THV ratio found in the HF patients.
Since VO2peak can not be obtained in HF patients with acute decompensation, the VO2peak/THV ratio can not be used in these patients. The VO2peak/THV ratio might, however, be of significant benefit when the HF diagnosis is uncertain, such as in the situation of stage A HF or if the progression of the disease is less clear.
Furthermore, the prognostic value of the VO2peak/THV ratio also remains to be determined in prospective follow-up studies of different patient groups with established HF or at risk for developing HF.