Exercise testing of children differs from adult exercise testing in many ways beyond the technical issues related to test performance that are addressed in this report. Disease processes that produce myocardial ischemia are relatively rare in children compared with adults. Exercise testing may be useful in these cases, but the use of testing to assess functional capacity or cardiac rhythms will be encountered more often. Although the precise role of exercise testing in patient evaluation or long-term management of the cardiac patient will vary somewhat from center to center, exercise testing is often essential to diagnose and to direct treatment in a wide variety of clinical problems. An understanding of the role of exercise testing for children with known or suspected heart abnormalities is an essential part of the training of pediatric cardiologists. The staff of the pediatric exercise laboratory should be available to discuss with the clinician when a test might be of value in a specific case in addition to providing advice about the specifics of the performance of the test and offering age- and size-appropriate normal data from the laboratory with test interpretation.

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The ability of two-dimensional echocardiography to measure left ventricular volumes and ejection fraction was evaluated in 25 children with congenital heart disease. Dimensions and planimetered areas were obtained in the short-axis view at the mitral valve and high and low papillary muscle levels and in the apical two- and four-chamber views. Eight algorithms using five geometric models were assessed. Left ventricular end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume and ejection fraction were compared with data from biplane cineangiocardiograms. The correlation varied with the algorithm used. Algorithms using short-axis views appeared superior to those using only apical long-axis views. Four algorithms estimated left ventricular volumes with equal accuracy (Simpson's rule, assuming the ventricle to be a truncated cone; Simpson's rule, assuming the ventricle to be a truncated ellipse; hemisphere cylinder; and ellipsoid biplane). The single algorithm that best estimated left ventricular ejection fraction was the ellipsoid biplane formula using the short-axis view at the papillary muscle level (r = 0.91, slope = 0.94, SEE = 6.7%). Thus, two-dimensional echocardiography can accurately assess left ventricular volumes and ejection fraction in children with congenital heart disease.

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