
Heart Rate Turbulence following Ventricular Premature Beats in Healthy Controls
Author(s) -
Grimm Wolfram,
Sharkova Julia,
Christ Michael,
Schneider Raphael,
Schmidt Georg,
Maisch Bernhard
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
annals of noninvasive electrocardiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.494
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1542-474X
pISSN - 1082-720X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1542-474x.2003.08206.x
Subject(s) - medicine , heart rate turbulence , cardiology , heart rate , heart rate variability , blood pressure
Background: Heart rate turbulence (HRT) has recently been described as a strong, independent risk stratifier in postinfarct patients. To date, however, the incidence of false positive HRT findings in adults is unknown. Therefore, we performed a blinded, retrospective analysis of HRT in a prospectively collected database of 110 apparently healthy persons to determine the prevalence and clinical significance of abnormal HRT findings in healthy controls using previously published cut‐off values. Methods and Results: The study included 43 out of 110 apparently healthy adults, in whom a sufficient number of ventricular premature beats were available for HRT analysis on 24‐hour Holter recordings. The HRT slope was dichotomized at 2.5 ms per R‐R interval and HRT onset was dichotomized at 0% using previously established criteria to define an abnormal HRT analysis in postinfarct patients. Using these definitions, abnormal HRT results were found in 2 out of 43 controls (5%) for HRT slope and in 8 out of 43 controls (19%) for HRT onset without any cardiac deaths during 32 ± 15 months follow‐up. Conclusions: The incidence of false positive HRT results in healthy middle‐aged volunteers is low for HRT slope (5%), but not for HRT onset (19%) when previously published cut‐off values are used to define abnormal HRT results. Thus, HRT slope dichotomized at 2.5 ms per R‐R interval, but not HRT onset dichotomized at 0%, may be used as a relatively specific tool for risk stratification in middle‐aged persons.