Assessment of cardiopulmonary capacity in deconditioned athletes because of knee injury.

A maximal CPET can be obtained in deconditioned athletes because of a knee injury, allowing a comprehensive functional pre-surgery evaluation. In these patients, peak VO<inf>2</inf> is reduced due to decreased physical activity after injury; however, a lower cardiopulmonary efficiency may be a concause of the injury itself. In addition, we demonstrated that the MW indexes obtained at rest could predict exercise capacity and ventilatory efficiency as evaluated by CPET.