Daily Chronic Intermittent Hypobaric Hypoxia Does Not Induce Chronic Increase in Pulmonary Arterial Pressure Assessed by Echocardiography

Table 2

Lowland pulmonary function tests and laboratory parameters.

Pulmonary function test	CIHH	Control	value
FEV1 pp	104.29 ± 5.85	110.56 ± 16.83	0.34
FVC pp	110.70 ± 12.99	111.01 ± 8.71	0.96
FEV1/FVC	78.30 ± 5.37	81.99 ± 5.39	0.19
MEF 75% pp	90.23 ± 19.50	107.57 ± 34.6	0.23
MEF 50% pp	82.6 ± 11.32	105.3 ± 40.65	0.17
MEF 25% pp	75.25 ± 14.47	88.48 ± 38.07	0.37
R tot (kPas/L)	0.20 ± 0.10	0.20 ± 0.07	0.95
TLC pp	107.68 ± 12.00	92.87 ± 36.78	0.30
DLCO-SB pp	97.69 ± 14.59	90.18 ± 11.41	0.27
DLCO/VA pp	97.41 ± 16.94	88.77 ± 12.01	0.26
DLCOc/VA pp	93.16 ± 15.28	88.45 ± 9.50	0.47
Baseline laboratory
Hb (mg/dl)	14.95 ± 0.95	13.81 ± 1.28	0.05
Ferritin (µg/l)	127.25 ± 131.23	132.63 ± 119.47	0.93
Pro-BNP (pg/ml)	17.80 ± 13.48	39.39 ± 38.60	0.18
Endothelin-1 (pg/ml)	1.26 ± 0.59	1.54 ± 1.06	0.73

CIHH: chronic intermittent hypobaric hypoxia; FEV1: forced expiratory volume in 1 sec; pp: percent predicted; FVC: forced vital capacitiy; R: resistance; TLC: total lung capacity; DLCO: lung diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide; SB: single breath; VA: alveolar volume; c: corrected for Hb; Hb: hemoglobin; BNP: brain natriuretic peptide; MEF 75, 50, 25: maximal expiratory flow at 25/50/75% of forced VC; by t-test; ±SD.