Heart Rate Variability as a Tool To Detect Cardiac Autonomic Neuropathy in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Background: Cardiac autonomic neuropathy in diabetic patients is a serious and common complication. Unrecognized cardiac autonomic neuropathy can prove fatal in them. The present study was done to evaluate efficacy of heart rate variability as a tool in diagnosis of cardiac autonomic neuropathy in diabetic patients. Methods: The study was carried out on 100 randomly newly detected cases of type 2 diabetic patients in a tertiary care hospital in Karnataka.  Frequency domain analysis of heart rate variability of the selected cases was compared with 50 healthy individuals taken as controls. Niviqure software was used to analyze heart rate variability in terms of Low Frequency, High Frequency the ratio. Student T test is applied to find out the statistical significance. Results: Mean ± SD of low frequency, high frequency and ratio of low and high frequency was calculated and no significant change is noted among controls and cases. Conclusion: The economic impact of   testing is heart rate variability as tool for early detection of cardiac autonomic neuropathy is minimal along with physical examination.