Cerebral and skeletal muscle tissue oxygenation during exercise challenge in children and young adults with sickle cell anaemia

Abstract

We used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine tissue oxygenation (StO₂₎ during exercise in 17 children and young adults with sickle cell anaemia (SCA) and 13 controls. Patients had lower cerebral StO₂ at all exercise stages and demonstrated significantly greater decreases in cerebral StO₂ later during exercise. Quadriceps StO₂ increased similarly in patients and controls during early exercise, but decreases from baseline were greater in patients during later exercise. At similar workloads, patients demonstrated lower cerebral StO₂ (69·2 ± 6·6 vs. 79·5 ± 5·3%, P < 0·001) and trended towards lower quadriceps StO₂ (67·7 ± 9·0 vs. 73·2 ± 7·9%, P = 0·09) $.$ Further studies of tissue oxygenation during exercise in SCA are warranted.

Keywords: cardiopulmonary exercise testing; near-infrared spectroscopy; sickle cell disease.