• S Nottin, A Vinet, A M Lecoq, P Guenon, and P Obert.
• Laboratoire de la performance motrice, faculté du sport et de l'éducation physique, université d'Orléans La Source, rue de Vendôme, BP 6237, 45062 Orléans.
• Arch Mal Coeur Vaiss. 2000 Nov 1;93(11):1297-303.

AbstractNon-invasive measurement of the cardiac output is essential in investigations of healthy children. However, the data concerning the reproducibility of the measurements are very limited. The aim of this study was to assess the reproducibility of the measurement of cardiac output during exercise by Doppler echocardiography and reinhalation of CO2 (extrapolation method). Fourteen pre-pubertal children underwent two similar tests at increasingly intense levels of exercise. The cardiac output was measured at rest and during the last minute of each stepwise increment of exercise. The results show no difference between the cardiac outputs of the two tests, whichever method was used and at all levels of exercise. They also demonstrate a better reproducibility of cardiac output measurement by Doppler echocardiography (coefficient of variation: 7.5% at rest and 5.2% at maximal effort) compared with reinhalation of CO2 (coefficient of variation: 16.8% at rest and 11.7% at maximal effort). Both methods showed better reproducibility on exercise, resulting from smaller variations in heart rate and stroke volume on effort than at rest. The authors conclude that Doppler echocardiography is very accurate and its simplicity makes it the method of choice in pre-pubertal children for measuring cardiac output during exercise.

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