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on August 25, 2003

Circulation. 2003
Published online before print August 25, 2003, doi: 10.1161/01.CIR.0000088783.34082.89
A more recent version of this article appeared on September 9, 2003
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Submitted on April 28, 2003
Revised on June 12, 2003
Accepted on June 13, 2003

Risk Stratification After Acute Myocardial Infarction by Heart Rate Turbulence

Petra Barthel MD, Raphael Schneider Dipl Ing, Axel Bauer MD, Kurt Ulm PhD, Claus Schmitt MD, Albert Schömig MD, and Georg Schmidt MD*

From 1 Medizinische Klinik and Institut für Medizinische Statistik und Epidemiologie der Technischen Universität München (K.U.), Germany.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gschmidt{at}med1.med.tum.de.

Background--Retrospective postinfarction studies revealed that decreased heart rate turbulence (HRT) indicates increased risk for subsequent death. This is the first prospective study to validate HRT in a large cohort of the reperfusion era.

Methods and Results--One thousand four hundred fifty-five survivors of an acute myocardial infarction (age <76 years) in sinus rhythm were enrolled. HRT onset (TO) and slope (TS) were calculated from Holter records. Patients were classified into the following HRT categories: category 0 if both TO and TS were normal, category 1 if either TO or TS was abnormal, or category 2 if both TO and TS were abnormal. The primary end point was all-cause mortality. During a follow-up of 22 months, 70 patients died. Multivariately, HRT category 2 was the strongest predictor of death (hazard ratio, 5.9; 95% CI, 2.9 to 12.2), followed by left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) <=30% (4.5; 2.6 to 7.8), diabetes mellitus (2.5; 1.6 to 4.1), age >=65 years (2.4; 1.5 to 3.9), and HRT category 1 (2.4; 1.2 to 4.9). LVEF <=30% had a sensitivity of 27% at a positive predictive accuracy level of 23%. The combined criteria of LVEF <=30%, HRT category 2 or LVEF >30%, age >=65 years, diabetes mellitus, and HRT category 2 had a sensitivity of 24% at a positive predictive accuracy level of 37%. The combined criteria of LVEF <=30% or LVEF >30%, age >=65 years, diabetes mellitus, and HRT category 1 or 2 had a sensitivity of 44% at a positive predictive accuracy level of 23%.

Conclusions--HRT is a strong predictor of subsequent death in postinfarction patients of the reperfusion era.


Key words: arrhythmia • heart rate • mortality • myocardial infarction • nervous system, autonomic




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