Reductions in Cardiac Structure and Function 24 Months After Spinal Cord Injury: A Cross-Sectional Study.

This was a cross-sectional study, so it compared different people at different times since injury rather than following the same heart over time. The sample was small, with 29 participants, and time since injury was not normally distributed across the 24 months because 20 of 29 were examined less than 12 months post injury. Participants were aged 18 to 40 years, medically stable, and excluded for hypertension, significant arrhythmias, coronary disease, diabetes, renal disease, cancer, epilepsy, any neurological disease, regular tobacco use, autonomic dysreflexia, implanted electronic cardiac devices, or exercise beyond standard care, so the findings may not apply to older or less stable patients. Heart size and function before injury were unknown, so the study cannot show how much each person's heart changed. Echocardiography and blood pressure measures were taken up to 14 days apart, and blood pressures were unknown in the first three months after injury. Sensory zone of partial preservation was used as a proxy for autonomic level, which is not a direct measure of autonomic function. Only 4 females were included, so the role of sex in cardiac remodeling could not be examined.

The authors declared no conflict of interest. The paper is listed as NIH extramural research support.

Do not conclude that exercise prevents these cardiac changes. This was a cross-sectional study of 29 people with spinal cord injury, not an exercise trial, and it did not measure cardiac structure before injury.