Comparison of Pulse Rate Variability and Heart Rate Variability for Hypoglycemia Syndrome

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a signal obtained from RR intervals of electrocardiography (ECG) signals to evaluate the balance between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system; not only HRV but also pulse rate variability (PRV) extracted from finger pulse plethysmography (PPG) can reflect irregularities that may occur in heart rate and control procedures.

The purpose of this study is to compare the HRV and PRV during hypoglycemia in order to evaluate the features that computed from PRV that can be used in detection of hypoglycemia.

To this end, PRV and HRV of 10 patients who required testing with insulin-induced hypoglycemia (IIHT) in Clinics of Endocrinology and Metabolism Diseases of Bezm-i Alem University (Istanbul, Turkey), were obtained. The recordings were done at three stages: prior to IIHT, during the IIHT, and after the IIHT. We used Bland-Altman analysis for comparing the parameters and to evaluate the correlation between HRV and PRV if exists.

Significant correlation (r > 0.90, p < 0.05) and close agreement were found between HRV and PRV for mean intervals, the root-mean square of the difference of successive intervals, standard deviation of successive intervals and the ratio of the low-to-high frequency power.

In conclusion, all the features computed from PRV and HRV have close agreement and correlation according to Bland-Altman analyses' results and features computed from PRV can be used in detection of hypoglycemia.