Patient characteristics
Table 1 summarises patient characteristics including demographics and cardiopulmonary performance (spirometry and CPET) with a total of 127 patients examined. Thirty-nine patients (31 %) were classified as obese with fifty-six (44 %) overweight. As anticipated, these patients were poorly conditioned with a O2PEAK that was on average almost 20 % lower than that predicted for age, sex-matched healthy controls with forty-five patients (35 %) exhibiting a O2-AT <11 mL/kg/min. O2-AT could not be determined in eighteen patients (14 %).