Heart rate turbulence - an overview of methods and applications

Abstract

Heart rate turbulence (HRT) is a relatively new but already well-established non-invasive ECG risk predictor. It has been confirmed as a strong predictor of mortality in large populations of post-infarction patients treated with both classical and modern methods. There have been contradictory results regarding its predictive value in other high-risk populations (idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and low ejection fraction cohorts). It is important that HRT seems to be particularly useful in identifying high-risk patients with preserved left ventricular function, the group of patients not covered by current indications for implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Further studies are needed to establish the need for correlation with heart rate, number of ventricular premature beats, heart rate variability parameters or clinical covariates in the process of risk stratification by means of HRT.