05 were considered to be significant. Forty-five patients with COPD, aged 47 to 87 years, were recruited. All participants were familiar with the 6MWT at the time of recruitment. Three patients dropped out of the second 6MWT due to medical reasons (n = 2, flu and hospitalisation) or private reason (n = 1, holiday). The first 6MWD in these three patients was used as their best test, based on the remaining 42 participants having a nonsignificant learning effect over both courses of 0% (p > 0.1) for the 10 m course and 2% (p > 0.1) for 30 m course, high

correlations between the first and second tests (r = 0.98, p < 0.001 for the 10 m course and NVP-BKM120 r = 0.92, p < 0.001 for the 30 m course), and no substantial offset (ie, 95% and 90%, respectively, of the difference scores were within the limits of agreement in Bland-Altman plots). Patient characteristics are summarised in Tables 2 and 3. All variables were normally distributed, apart from physical activity score, change in heart rate, SpO2, Borg dyspnoea and Borg fatigue, which were expected to be skewed, since this study population consists of older adults with COPD, disabled in their activity level. The 6MWDs on the 10 m and 30 m courses were both normally distributed and there were no significant outliers. All participants achieved a shorter 6MWD on the 10 m course than on the 30 m course.

The mean difference between the better 6MWD on the 10 m versus 30 m course was 49.5 m (SD 33.6; range 9–143; one-tailed t = −9.9, p < 0.001). There was a high Pearson correlation between the better 6MWD on the 10 m EX 527 nmr and 30 m courses (r = 0.96, p < 0.01). Furthermore, a high ICCconsistency (0.86, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.92) was revealed between Org 27569 6MWD on the 10 m and 30 m courses, without substantial offset (SEMconsistency = 41.14 and 93% of the difference scores within the limits of agreement: −16.32 m to 115.30 m). Figure

1 shows the systematic lower performance on the 10 m course compared to the 30 m course, regardless of test performance. Established values to predict the 6MWD were compared with the measured 6MWDs of the participants. Every reference equation that included Caucasian subjects overestimated the measured 6MWDs of the participants, which was to be expected because prediction models are based on healthy subjects. The predicted values compared to the achieved 6MWDs on the 10 m course showed an overestimation ranging from 30% to 33%. However, the predicted 6MWD was based on four prediction models that are all established with walking courses exceeding 10 metres: Gibbons et al (2001) used a 20 m course, Hill et al (2011) used 30 m, Jenkins et al (2009) used 45 m, and Troosters et al (1999) used 50 m. Therefore all participants showed a higher average %pred6MWD on the 30 m course than on the 10 m course (mean difference = 8%, p < 0.001), with no substantial offset in the variation in the %pred 6MWD over the range of values (ICCconsistency = 0.81, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.