Korean J Med.  2012 Nov;83(5):606-612.

Comparison of Heart Rate Variability in Kidney Transplantation and End-Stage Renal Disease Patients on Dialysis

• Lee HR
• Oh JS
• Choi SH
• Jung P
• Ryu TH
• Kim SM
• Sin YH
• Kim JK
• Bae WH
• Hong TJ

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS
Heart rate variability (HRV) is a method for evaluation of autonomic nervous system activity by expressing the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic tones. Some studies of HRV in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) have been performed in Korea. However, few have examined kidney transplantation (KT) patients. Therefore, we investigated autonomic nervous system activity by means of HRV in patients with KT due to ESRD.
METHODS
We compared the pattern of cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic activity by time- and frequency-domain analysis of HRV with 24-h Holter monitoring of 23 KT and 56 dialysis patients. Patients underwent KT between January, 2008 and June, 2011.
RESULTS
The mean ages of KT and dialysis patients were 54.2 +/- 12.3 and 53.7 +/- 12.6 years, respectively. The KT group showed increased time- and frequency-domain HRV (including HRV index), very low frequency (VLF), means and standard deviations of all normal R-R intervals for all 5-min segments of the entire recording (SDNNi), low frequency (LF), LF in normalized units (LF norm), and LF to high-frequency power ratio, compared with the dialysis group.
CONCLUSIONS
Autonomic tone in patients with KT is higher than that in patients with ESRD on dialysis.

Keyword

Ambulatory; Electrocardiography; Heart rate; Kidney transplantation

MeSH Terms

Autonomic Nervous System
Dialysis
Electrocardiography
Electrocardiography, Ambulatory
Heart
Heart Rate
Humans
Kidney
Kidney Failure, Chronic
Kidney Transplantation
Korea