Reliability of repeated arm-crank cardiopulmonary exercise tests in patients with small abdominal aortic aneurysm

Arm-crank ergometry may be useful in patients unable to pedal, for instance due to peripheral arterial disease. Twenty participants with small abdominal aortic aneurysm undertook two serial arm-crank tests and then a pedal test, four of whom had indeterminate anaerobic thresholds, precluding analysis. The mean (SD) peak arm and leg oxygen consumptions in 16 participants were 13.71 (2.62) ml.kg^-1 .min^-1 and 16.82 (4.44) ml.kg^-1 .min^-1 , with mean (SD) individual differences of 3.11 (2.48) ml.kg^-1 .min^-1 , p = 0.0001. The respective values at the anaerobic thresholds were 7.83 (1.58) ml O₂ .kg^-1 .min^-1 and 10.09 (3.15) ml O₂ .kg^-1 .min^-1 , with mean (SD) individual differences of 2.26 (2.34) ml O₂ .kg^-1 .min^-1 , p = 0.0001. The correlation coefficients (95%CI) for peak oxygen consumption and anaerobic threshold were 0.88 (0.62-1.0) and 0.70 (0.32-1.0). There were no significant differences in serial arm-crank tests, with intracluster correlations (95%CI) of 0.87 (0.86-0.88) and 0.65 (0.61-0.69) for peak oxygen consumption and anaerobic threshold, respectively.