Risk stratification after acute myocardial infarction by heart rate turbulence

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.