Kaplan Meier survival curves of patients with preserved versus reduced left ventricular function.

<p>The survival rate <b>[A]</b>, event-free rate of death or heart failure re-hospitalization <b>[B]</b> and event-free from all hospitalizations <b>[C]</b> of patients with preserved versus reduced LVF (N = 309). There was no significant difference in survival or clinical event-free rate between the groups.</p

Predictors of death by Cox Regression analysis.

*<p>Log₁₀-transformed.</p

Demographics and clinical characteristics of the patients with CHF.

<p>Data is presented as mean ± standard deviation or median (interquartile range) for continuous variables and counts (percentages) for categorical variables. P value by the student T test or Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables and the Chi-Square Test for categorical variables.</p><p>CXR - Chest X ray. LA - left atrium. LV - left ventricle. EDD – end diastolic diameter. ESD – end systolic diameter. RVF – right ventricle function. PG –pressure gradient.</p

The effect of exercise on the in vivo (aerobic exercise capacity) and in vitro (cardiac output, systolic and diastolic function) measurements.

<p>CTRL, control group; ST, short term trained group; LT, long term trained group.</p

Aerobic test protocol at weeks 1and 8 of the study.

<p>Aerobic test protocol at weeks 1and 8 of the study.</p

Induction of VF and exercise intensity.

<p>A. Current intensity and S₂ interval for VF induction in individual experiments for the 3 groups. B. Threshold current for VF induction in the studied groups (p<0.05 for ST compared to LT and CTRL, p<0.0001 for LT compared to CTRL). C. The relationship between the exercise intensity (the different groups) and the distribution of stimulus coupling interval S₂ that induces VF in the studied group (ST and LT compared to CTRL).</p

Welch power spectra.

<p>A. Welch averaged 10 consecutive power spectra of single animals from the CTRL (left), ST (middle) and LT (right) groups. B. Averaged power spectra of 1-second long pseudo-ECG segments for 93 VF events lasting more than 2 seconds in the CTRL (red) group and for 29 VF events lasting more than 2 seconds in the ST (blue) group (This analysis was not performed for the LT group because only 5 VF events in 4/7 animals were detected in that group).</p

Probability and duration of VT/VF episodes.

<p>A. Probability for VT and VF induction as percentage number of events per 1000 stimuli. B. Duration of contiguous episodes of VF in the 3 groups (p<0.05 for ST to CTRL and p<0.01 for LT to CTRL).</p

Exercise protocol for the short term (ST) and long term (LT) trained groups.

<p>(Note the increased duration and intensity of the exercise in the trained groups).</p

Time course of spectral properties of VF in a control and exercised sample rats.

<p>Ten consecutive 1-second long pseudo-ECG episodes of VF (from early at top to late at bottom) with their corresponding power spectra for sample animals from the CTRL (A), ST (B) and LT (C) groups, respectively. Numbers on power spectra traces indicate values of significant peaks in Hz.</p