[Positional paper of the German working group "cardiopulmonary exercise testing" to ventilatory and metabolic (lactate) thresholds].

Thresholds in cardiopulmonary exercise testing are necessary for the evaluation of motivation and cooperation in exercise, for training programs, in transplant medicine, preoperative evaluation and medical assessments. There is a hardly comprehensible number of terminologies concerning these thresholds and their definitions. This hampers the comparison of protocols and studies and leads to incertainties in terminologies and interpretations of cardiopulmonary exercise tests. Based on literature a definition of thresholds was undertaken. Thresholds should be regarded from a conceptional and an operational (methodological) point of view. The conceptional model means, that there are two ventilatory thresholds (VT1 and VT2) and two metabolic thresholds (lactate threshold [LT] 1 and 2 ). These thresholds are pathophysiologically based. Both threshold concepts determinate the beginning and the end of the aerobic-anaerobic transition. The lactate thresholds determine the metabolic changes, whereas the ventilator thresholds 1 and 2 represent the ventilatory response to the metabolic changes. VT1 represents the subsequent increase of ventilation and CO2-output relative to oxygen uptake as a consequence of an increase of lactate and a necessary lactate buffering. VT2 is characterized by an exceeding of lactate-steady-state, resulting in excess lactate, metabolic acidosis and overproportional rise of ventilation. The operational concept describes the method, which is used for determination of the different lactate and ventilatory thresholds. In a further step this can be completed by indicating the exercise protocol which was applied. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.