• Esra Pehlivan, Fatma Mutluay, Arif Balcı, and Lütfiye Kılıç.
• 1 Department of Pulmonary Rehabilitation, Yedikule Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Clin Rehabil. 2018 Oct 1; 32 (10): 1328-1339.

ObjectiveTo investigate whether inspiratory muscle training would contribute to the improvement of exercise capacity, dyspnea perception and respiratory functions in lung transplantation candidates.DesignProspective randomized controlled trial.SettingPulmonary Rehabilitation center.SubjectsA total of 34 patients with severe lung disease requiring lung transplantation were randomly allocated to either pulmonary rehabilitation plus inspiratory muscle training group (PR + IMT group, n = 17) or pulmonary rehabilitation group (PR group, n = 17) before any lung transplantation operation.MethodsAll patients underwent supervised pulmonary rehabilitation program on two days per week for three months. The PR + IMT group received inspiratory muscle training in addition to the standard pulmonary rehabilitation program. The 6-minute walk test, maximal inspiratory pressure, modified Medical Research Concile dyspnea scores and spirometric parameters were measured for each patient.ResultsThe PR + IMT group had statistically significantly increased in walking distance (100 m, P = 0.03), maximum inspiratory pressure (26 cmH2O, P = 0.001) and alveolar volume ratio of carbonmonoxide diffusion capacity (9%, P = 0.02) than PR group. Although both groups demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in the dyspnea score, no significant differences were found between the groups ( P = 0.075). There was no change in spirometric variables in both groups.ConclusionA greater increase in exercise capacity was observed in the PR + IMT group. Our study showed that inspiratory muscle training improved exercise capacity even further and increased the benefits provided by pulmonary rehabilitation.

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