Influence of Ectopic Beats on Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Physiology
• Biomedical Signal Processing
• Non-linear Dynamics

Background:

• Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis is crucial for assessing cardiovascular system function.
• HRV reflects autonomic nervous system activity, but ectopic beats can distort analysis.
• The quantitative impact of ectopic beats on various HRV indices remains under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the quantitative relationship between ectopic beat burden and HRV indices.
• To evaluate the robustness of time-domain, frequency-domain, and non-linear HRV measures against ectopic beats.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of widely accepted HRV parameters: SDNN (time-domain), LF/HF ratio (frequency-domain), Sample Entropy (SampEn), and Pt-SampEn (non-linear).
• Simulated varying numbers of ectopic beats to assess their impact on selected HRV indices.
• Comparative analysis of the influence of ectopic beats across different HRV metrics.

Main Results:

• All tested HRV indices (SDNN, LF/HF, SampEn, Pt-SampEn) were affected by ectopic beats.
• The degree of influence generally increased with a higher number of ectopic beats.
• The LF/HF ratio was most sensitive to ectopic beats, while Pt-SampEn exhibited the greatest robustness.

Conclusions:

• Ectopic beats introduce significant variability and potential inaccuracies in HRV analysis.
• Pt-SampEn offers a more reliable measure of HRV in the presence of ectopic beats compared to SDNN, LF/HF, and SampEn.
• Findings suggest Pt-SampEn is a valuable tool for robust cardiovascular functional status assessment in clinical scenarios with arrhythmias.