Kourek C, Karatzanos E, Nanas S, Karabinis A, Dimopoulos S. Exercise training in heart transplantation. World J Transplant 2021; 11(11): 466-479 [PMID: 34868897 DOI: 10.5500/wjt.v11.i11.466]
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Andreas Karabinis, Stavros Dimopoulos, Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens 17674, Greece
Author contributions: Kourek C and Karatzanos E reviewed the literature; and Kourek C drafted the manuscript; Nanas S and Karabinis A revised the manuscript; Dimopoulos S designed the research study and revised the drafted manuscript; and all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Received: March 1, 2021 Peer-review started: March 1, 2021 First decision: July 29, 2021 Revised: August 12, 2021 Accepted: October 27, 2021 Article in press: October 27, 2021 Published online: November 18, 2021
Core Tip
Core Tip: Heart transplantation is the gold standard treatment of end-stage heart failure (HF). Heart transplantation patients present lower exercise capacity due to cardiac, vascular and skeletal muscle abnormalities. Exercise training improves exercise capacity, cardiac and vascular endothelial function in heart transplant recipients. Pre-rehabilitation regular aerobic or combined exercise is beneficial for patients with end-stage HF awaiting heart transplantation. All heart transplant recipients either hospitalized or after hospital discharge should be referred to a cardiac rehabilitation program. Individualized training still remains the most applicable approach despite the fact that high intensity interval training seems to have more benefits than moderate intensity continuous training.
