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PULMONARY GAS EXCHANGE EFFICIENCY DURING EXERCISE IN WOMEN AND MEN, DOES SEX MATTER?

Abstract

K. Carey1, T. Kelly1, J.E. Elliott2,3, R.C. Roach4, A.T. Lovering1

1University of Oregon, Eugene OR; 2Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, 3OR; VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR;4UC Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO

Some have suggested that women have worse pulmonary gas exchange efficiency during exercise than men, but this is not always found to be the case. Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is present in ~30% of the population and could be a potential source of right-to-left shunt that can worsen gas exchange efficiency. PURPOSE: To determine whether or not the presence of a PFO plays a role in determining pulmonary gas exchange efficiency in men and women. METHODS: 25 subjects were recruited and screened for presence of PFO utilizing saline contrast echocardiography. 11 female subjects, 7 with PFO and 14 male subjects, 5 with PFO exercised at 5 submaximal workloads (70-190 Watts). Arterial blood was taken from a radial artery catheter pre-exercise and during the final 30 seconds of each workload and was immediately analyzed for pH, PaCO2and PaO2. Alveolar PO2was calculated using the alveolar gas equation and the alveolar-to-arterial oxygen difference (gold standard measure of pulmonary gas exchange efficiency) was quantified. Comparisons were made using 2 (PFO+ and PFO-), 2-way ANOVAs (sex x time) with Bonferroni correction for pairwise comparisons, with significance set at pRESULTS: PFO+ women did not have worse pulmonary gas exchange efficiency than PFO+ men. However, PFO- women had worse pulmonary gas exchange efficiency than PFO- men with specific pairwise difference at 130W, (10.12 ± 4.4 vs 5.7 ± 2.4) (mean ± SEM). CONCLUSION: These preliminary results suggest that pulmonary gas exchange efficiency is worse only in women without a PFO; data collection for this study is ongoing.

Support: American Heart Association (A.T. Lovering); Department of Defense (W81XWH-11-2-0040 TATRC to R.C. Roach and W81XWH-10-2-0114 to A.T. Lovering).

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