• Yutian Lai, Jianhua Su, Peiyuan Qiu, Mingming Wang, Kun Zhou, Yuxin Tang, and Guowei Che.
• Department of Thoracic Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
• Interact Cardiovasc Thorac Surg. 2017 Sep 1; 25 (3): 476-483.

ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to assess the impact of a preoperative 1-week, systematic, high-intensity inpatient exercise regimen on patients with lung cancer who had risk factors for postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs).MethodsWe conducted a randomized controlled trial with 101 subjects of a preoperative, 7-day systematic, integrated, high-intensity pulmonary exercise regimen. The control group received standard preoperative care. We analysed the occurrence of PPCs in both groups as the primary outcome; other outcomes included changes in blood gas, quality of life, peak expiratory flow rate, the 6-min walk distance and others.ResultsThe 6-min walk distance showed an increase of 22.9 ± 25.9 m in the intervention group compared with 4.2 ± 9.2 m in the control group, giving a between-group difference of 18.7 m (95% confidence interval: 8.8-28.6; P < 0.001); the peak expiratory flow increased by 25.2 ± 24.6 l/min, compared with 4.2 ± 7.7 l/min (between-group difference: 21.0 m, 95% confidence interval: 7.2-34.8; P = 0.003). The intervention group had a shorter average total (15.6 ± 3.6 vs 17.7 ± 5.3 days, P = 0.023) and postoperative length of stay (6.1 ± 3.0 vs 8.7 ± 4.6 days, P = 0.001) than the control group; the incidence of PPCs (9.8%, 5/51 vs 28.0%, 14/50, P = 0.019) was significantly lower. A multivariable analysis of the risk of PPCs identified short-term rehabilitation intervention to be an independent risk factor (odds ratio = 0.156, 95% confidence interval: 0.037-0.649, P = 0.011).ConclusionsThe study results suggested that a systematic, high-intensity pulmonary exercise programme was a practical strategy when performed preoperatively in patients with lung cancer with risk factors for PPCs.Clinical Trial RegistrationChiCTR-IOR-16008109.© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.

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