Variabilidade da frequência cardíaca no domínio do caos como preditora de infecções pulmonares em pacientes submetidos à cirurgia de revascularização do miocárdio

Abstract

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the most frequently used non-invasive diagnostic method for evaluating the heart autonomic control. Taking into consideration that the autonomous nervous system modulates, in an important way, the cardiovascular function, any alteration in the autonomous cardiovascular function constitutes cause and/or coadjuvant condition for numerous diseases. Recent studies have shown that through the heart frequency variability, by evaluating it within time, frequency and chaos domain, the human organisms, generally speaking, show a behavior of nonlinear complex systems, thus following the laws of Chaos Theory. The HRV analysis, by other nonlinear dynamic methods in the myocardial revascularization surgery pre-operation period, could predict more morbidity in the post-operation period, for example, lung infections. Objective: Evaluate the heart rate variability (HRV) behavior in the chaos domain (nonlinear dynamic) in the preoperative period of surgical myocardial revascularization and its relationship to lung infections occurrences in postoperative stay. Casuistic and Method: 72 non-selected patients were studied (age range from 58.4±10.2 years old) with coronary artery disease and having elective surgery indication for myocardial revascularization. In order to quantify the HRV in the chaos domain, the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA total) variables, their short-term (α1) and long-term (α2) correlations, Approximate Entropy (-ApEn), Lyapunov Exponent (LE), self-correlation (Tau), Normalized Tau (nT) and Hurst Exponent (HE) were measured in temporal series of 1.000 RR intervals of electrocardiogram recorded on the day before the operation, with Polar S810i equipment. Results: The cut-off levels were determined with help from ROC curve being for DFA total, α1, α2, Approximate Entropy, Lyapunov Exponent, Tau, Normalized Tau and Hurst Exponent, respectively: 1.036917,  0.727273,  0.906397,  0.480176,  0.832,  28.23143, 11.312504,  and 0.210447. In the Chaos Domain, the DFA total, Normalized Tau , Approximate Entropy and Lyapunov Exponent in the pre-operation period, were associated with the lung infection occurrences in the postoperative period with P =0.0309, P=0.0232, P= 0.0307 and P= 0.0006, respectively. In conclusion, the nonlinear dynamic methods, in their respective cut-off levels, allowed differentiating the cases that evolved into lung infection in the postoperative period of surgical myocardial revascularization.