%0 Journal Article
%T Influence of aging and chronic heart failure on temporal dispersion of myocardial repolarization
%A Piccirillo G
%A Moscucci F
%A Pascucci M
%A Pappad&agrave
%A MA
%J Clinical Interventions in Aging
%D 2013
%I Dove Medical Press
%X Gianfranco Piccirillo,1 Federica Moscucci,1 Matteo Pascucci,1 Maria Antonella Pappad¨¤,1 Gaetana D¡¯Alessandro,1 Pietro Rossi,2 Raffaele Quaglione,1 Daniele Di Barba,1 Francesco Barill¨¤,1 Damiano Magr¨¬3 1Department of Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Nephrological and Geriatric Sciences, Policlinico Umberto I, ¡°Sapienza¡± University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 2Division of Cardiology, S. Giovanni Calabita Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Rome, Italy; 3Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Sant¡¯Andrea Hospital, ¡°Sapienza¡± University of Rome, Rome, Italy Background and purpose: QT and Tpeak-Tend (Te) intervals are associated with sudden cardiac death in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). We studied age-dependent influence on short-term temporal dispersion of these two variables in patients with postischemic CHF. Method: We grouped 75 CHF and 53 healthy control subjects into three age subsets: ¡Ü50 years, >50 years and ¡Ü65 years, and >65 years. We then calculated the following indices: QT and Te variability index (QTVI and TeVI), the ratio between the short-term variability (STV) of QT or Te, and the STV of resting rate (RR) (QT/RR STV and Te/RR STV). Results: In all different age subgroups, patients with CHF showed a higher level of QTVI than age-matched control subjects (¡Ü50 years: P < 0.0001; >50 years and ¡Ü65 years: P < 0.05; >65 years: P <  0.05). Patients with CHF < 50 years old also had all repolarization variability indices higher than normal age-matched controls (TeVI, P < 0.05; QT/RR STV, P < 0.05; Te/RR STV, P < 0.05), whereas we did not find any difference between the two older classes of subjects. Both QTVI (r2: 0.178, P < 0.05) and TeVI (r2: 0.433, P < 0.001) were positively related to age in normal subjects, even if the first correlation was weaker than the second one. Conclusion: Our data showed that QTVI could be used in all ages to evaluate repolarization temporal liability, whereas the other indices are deeply influenced by age. Probably, the age-dependent increase in QTVI was more influenced by a reduction of RR variability reported in older normal subjects. Keywords: aging, QT variability, heart rate variability, chronic heart failure, sudden death
%U http://www.dovepress.com/influence-of-aging-and-chronic-heart-failure-on-temporal-dispersion-of-a12432