Responsiveness of Various Exercise-Testing Protocols to Therapeutic Interventions in COPD

Figure 2

The impact of interventions on the exercise performance following testing methodologies in COPD population. With CPET: CardioPulmonary Exercise Test, ISWT: Incremental Shuttle Walking Test, CET: Cycle Endurance Test, ESWT: Endurance Shuttle Walking Test and 6MWT: 6 minute Walking Test. The percentages of improvement have been calculated, for each exercise protocol, by using the references quoted in the manuscript. All the others tests present in Table 1 (incremental treadmill exercise, constant work rate treadmill test, 3 min walk and step tests, and 6 minute stepper test) are not shown as there is nonexistent or insufficient data in the literature.