Home-Based Long-Term Physical Endurance and Inspiratory Muscle Training for Children and Adults With Fontan Circulation-Initial Results From a Prospective Study.

Background: Patients with congenital heart disease (CHD)-including those after Fontan operation-are encouraged to be physically active.

Aim: To prospectively determine the effects of an individually adapted, home-based cycle ergometer endurance training in combination with inspiratory muscle training (IMT) in pediatric and adult Fontan patients. We, herein, report the results of the initial 10-months follow-up (phase 1).

Mismatch between self-estimated and objectively assessed exercise capacity in patients with congenital heart disease varies in regard to complexity of cardiac defects.

Aim: Regular evaluation of physical capacity takes a crucial part in long-term follow-up in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). This study aims to examine the accuracy of self-estimated exercise capacity compared to objective assessments by cardiopulmonary exercise testing in patients with CHD of various complexity.

Methods: We conducted a single centre, cross-sectional study with retrospective analysis on 382 patients aged 8-68 years with various CHD who completed cardiopulmonary exercise tests.

Expression analysis of surface molecules on human thymic dendritic cells with the 10th HLDA Workshop antibody panel.

Dendritic cells (DC) in the thymus have an important role in the establishment of central tolerance by promoting negative selection of autoreactive T cells and regulatory T-cell differentiation. Whereas human DC have recently been studied in various tissues in more detail, thymic DC subsets are still ill-defined. In the present work, we studied the binding of 71 monoclonal antibodies (mAb) submitted to the HLDA10 workshop to human CD123(+) plasmacytoid DC and the two subsets of conventional DC (cDC, CD141(+) and CD11b(+)) isolated from thymus tissue of infants undergoing corrective heart surgery.