title: Automated versus interactive spectral analysis of heart rate variability from 24-hour Holter recordings in heart failure patients.
abstract: Accurate spectral analysis of 24-hour heart rate variability (HRV) requires time consuming interactive control of the overall processing, limiting its feasibility in large scale clinical trials. Fully automatic procedures allow a dramatic reduction of analysis time but the level of accuracy loss is unknown. In this study we compared automatic and interactive measurements of HRV indexes in a sample of 246 Holter recordings from chronic heart failure patients. We measured the total power of HRV and the power in the very low (0.01-0.04 Hz), low (0.04-0.15 Hz) and high (0.15-0.4 Hz) frequency bands. The comparison between the two methods was performed by computing the normalized difference between automatic and interactive measurements and estimating the bias and 95% limits of agreement. Automatic measurements showed a small bias (&lt; ±8%) compared to interactive measurements, while the limits of agreement were ≤±23% in all spectral indexes. Our results indicate that the systematic and random difference between automatic and interactive measurements of spectral indexes of HRV are acceptable for clinical studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Scientific Institute of Montescano, Italy. roberto.maestri@fsm.it
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maestri
authors.forename: Maria Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: La Rovere
authors.forename: Gian Domenico
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Pinna
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D015716:Electrocardiography, Ambulatory / Q000379:methods*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D015588:Observer Variation; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014584:User-Computer Interface