HEART RATE TURBULENCE AS A MORTALITY PREDICTOR IN LONG-TERM STUDY IN PATIENTS WITH CORONARY HEART DISEASE

Abstract

Pathological heart rate turbulence (HRT) after premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and myocardial infarction (MI) may predict higher mortality rate. Aim. To estimate the predictive power HRT in 5 year observational study in patients with CHD. Material and methods. 173 patients with CHD and in whom HRT was possible to record, were analyzed from 2010-2011 until 2015 with survival rate and turbulence slope (TS) and turbulence onset (TO) estimation. Results. Pathological TO showed no correlation with survival rate (p>0,05) but pathological TS in 5 years period (p=0,00026) correlated with survival rate with post-MI patients. Moreover, it had a predictive power also with non-MI patients (p=0,0032). The survival (Kaplan-Mayer) curves between normal and pathological TS started to divide from the 36 months of observation. Presence of nTS in post MI patients increased mortality rate in 5,14 times (p=0,00002) and in non-MI — in 4,99 times (p=0,00002). Conclusions. HRT slope parameter showed to be highly effective in mortality risk prediction in patients with CHD.

Keywords

• heart turbulence rate
• total mortality
• myocardial infarction