Cited by 289Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic ControlCardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmiasHeart Failure Treatment and Management

Prognostic value of heart rate variability in chronic congestive heart failure (Veterans Affairs’ Survival Trial of Antiarrhythmic Therapy in Congestive Heart Failure)

Bilchick, Kenneth C, Fetics, Barry, Djoukeng, Ronnie, Gross Fisher, Susan, Fletcher, Ross D, Singh, Steven N, Nevo, Erez, Berger, Ronald D·2002·The American Journal of Cardiology

Abstract

Although the value of heart rate variability (HRV) for risk stratification after acute myocardial infarction has been demonstrated, the value of low HRV as a predictor of sudden cardiac death in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy has not been shown convincingly to date. We retrospectively analyzed electrocardiographic data from 179 patients in the Veterans Affairs' Survival Trial of Antiarrhythmic Therapy in Congestive Heart Failure to determine if HRV (expressed as the SD of the normal-to-normal RR intervals [SDNN]) would be useful as a predictor of overall mortality and sudden death. Because our goal was to identify high-risk patients, we compared patients in the lowest quartile of HRV with the remaining patients. Among the 127 patients meeting inclusion criteria, SDNN <65.3 ms (the lowest quartile) was the sole independent factor predictive of survival in a multivariate model (p = 0.0001). A Cox proportional-hazards model revealed that each increase of 10 ms in SDNN conferred a 20% decrease in risk of mortality (p = 0.0001). Furthermore, patients with SDNN <65.3 ms had a significantly increased risk of sudden death (p = 0.016). Thus, HRV was the sole independent predictor of overall mortality and was significantly associated with sudden death in this population.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/s0002-9149(02)02380-9

Cites

20 of 20 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Sudden death, increased morbidity and mortality following cardiac surgery in hostile or depressed patients, and increased death rates in patients with sepsis or organ failure are linked clinically to decreased vagus nerve activity.

    “Sudden death, increased morbidity and mortality following cardiac surgery in hostile or depressed patients, and increased death rates in patients with sepsis or organ failure are linked clinically to decreased vagus nerve activity (50)(51)(52)(53)(54).”

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bilchick, K. C., Fetics, B., Djoukeng, R., Gross Fisher, S., Fletcher, R. D., Singh, S. N., Nevo, E., & Berger, R. D.
Affiliations
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
  • United States Department of Veterans Affairs (US)
Venue
The American Journal of Cardiology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2002-07
Volume
90
Issue
1
Pages
24-28
ISSN
0002-9149 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2122859962
Cited by
288
References
20
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 10
FWCI
10.92
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • The American Journal of Cardiology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (5r44hl061903-03)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (P50-HL52307, P50HL052307, R44 HL61903)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Failure Treatment and Management
Keywords
heart rate variability, chronic congestive heart failure, SDNN, all-cause mortality, sudden cardiac death, risk stratification, antiarrhythmic therapy, veterans
MeSH terms
Aged, Amiodarone, Anti-Arrhythmia Agents, Arrhythmias, Cardiac, Chronic Disease, Female, Heart Failure, Heart Rate, Humans, Male, Predictive Value of Tests, Prognosis, Retrospective Studies, Risk Factors, Stroke Volume, United States, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Electrocardiography, Ambulatory, Comorbidity, Multivariate Analysis, Proportional Hazards Models, Survival Analysis, Death, Sudden, Cardiac, Myocardial Ischemia

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review