Pediatric Exercise Testing

Pediatric exercise testing has an important role in the understanding and management of pediatric heart disease. The complex interplay between physiologic systems in the body is most evident during exercise. The type of exercise test used most often in pediatric laboratories is the cardiopulmonary exercise test. This test allows for the integrated assessment of the cardiovascular, pulmonary, skeletal muscle, and other systems. The data gathered from this test are abundant and span beyond heart rate and endurance time to provide a more complete understanding of an individual’s functional capacity. Interpretation and application of variables such as ventilatory anaerobic threshold, peak oxygen consumption, oxygen pulse, VE/VC02 slope, and multiple others requires a basic understanding of exercise physiology. This chapter will cover exercise physiology, reasons to obtain pediatric exercise testing, how to perform a test, and finally how to interpret data obtained from pediatric cardiopulmonary and other exercise tests.