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Cardiopulmonary exercise testing in the clinical evaluation of patients with interstitial lung disease: A systematic review

Interstitial lung diseases involve multiple pathological mechanisms, including interstitial and alveolar destruction. In addition, pulmonary inflammation associated with the disease can reduce lung capacity and induce hypoxia, which becomes more significant with exercise. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing is used for diagnostic purposes and functional evaluation. This type of testing can measure the walking distance versus time to estimate the functional capacity of patients enrolled in rehabilitation programs. It can also assess cardiopulmonary functions in terms of carbon dioxide output, pulmonary gas exchange, as well as lung response influenced by exercise. Therefore, this systematic review aims to explore the clinical significance of using cardiopulmonary exercise testing in interstitial lung disease by reviewing the present medical literature. The literature review was carried out through Medline, Ovid, PubMed, and Google scholar databases, between 2010 and 2020. Searching terms included were a combination of “Cardiopulmonary exercise testing” AND “interstitial lung diseases.” After literature review, results were revised manually to include only original research articles evaluating the use of cardiopulmonary testing in interstitial lung disease. Selected trials mentioned the respiratory parameters evaluated. Seven articles were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. The available data on cardiopulmonary exercise testing in interstitial lung diseases are explicitly still unclear. This finding opens the gates for future well-designed studies on this population.