Time domain heart rate variability analysis in patients with thalassaemia major.
OBJECTIVE
Cardiac complication is one of the major causes of death in patients with thalassaemia major. Heart rate variability is a non-invasive index of neuronal modulation of heart rate. In this study, autonomic functions of the heart in a preclinical stage of heart disease were evaluated in 48 thalassaemic patients with time domain heart rate variability analysis; the control group consisted of 45 healthy subjects.


RESULTS
Mean RR time in the study and control group was 0.73 +/- 0.1, and 0.82 +/- 0.1 ms respectively (p < 0.001). In the study group; SDNN, SDNN-i, SDANN-i, RMSSD, and PNN50 were found to be 167.4 +/- 86.2 ms, 153.9 +/- 108.1 ms, 111.4 +/- 60.4 ms, 108.9 +/- 86.7 ms, and 14.5 +/- 13.4%, respectively. Time domain parameters were significantly lower in the study group than the control group (p < 0.00 1). There was a significant positive correlation between the mean RR time and SDNN, SDNN-i, SDANN-i, RMSSD, and PNN50 (for the RMSSD p < 0.05, r = 0.31; for the others p = 0.000, and r values were 0.65, 0.65, 0.38, 0.37 for the SDNN, SDNN-i, SDANN-i, and PNN50, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
The analysis of heart rate variability might be helpful to detect cardiac complications in the preclinical stage of the cardiac involvement.
Gurses
Dolunay
D
Paediatric Cardiology, Ege University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Izmir, Turkey. dolunayk@yahoo.com
Ulger
Zülal
Z
Levent
Ertürk
E
Aydinok
Yeşim
Y
Ozyurek
A Ruhi
AR
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015716:Electrocardiography, Ambulatory; D005260:Female; D005293:Ferritins / Q000378:metabolism; D006339:Heart Rate; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013318:Stroke Volume; D013997:Time Factors; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left; D017086:beta-Thalassemia / Q000097:blood / Q000503:physiopathology*
D015415:Biomarkers; D006454:Hemoglobins; D005293:Ferritins