Diabetes-Related Alterations in Vectorcardiographic Repolarization Geometry: Insights from Physiological and...

Diabetes is associated with alterations in cardiac electrophysiology, yet the extent to which metabolic dysfunction influences spatial ventricular repolarization geometry remains unclear. Vectorcardiographic (VCG) analysis provides a spatial representation of cardiac electrical activity and may reveal subtle electrophysiological changes associated with metabolic disease.

This study analyzed VCG features in 200 adults to characterize the relationship between diabetes and depolarization-repolarization dynamics. Spatial parameters including QRS-T angle, T-wave and QRS magnitudes, loop morphology indices, and interval-based features were extracted from reconstructed orthogonal leads derived from standard electrocardiograms. Associations between clinical variables and VCG parameters were evaluated using Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis. A Random Forest classifier was used to assess whether VCG features capture metabolic influences, with model performance evaluated on a holdout dataset. Permutation testing assessed statistical significance, and SHAP (Shapley Additive Explanations) analysis was used to quantify feature contributions to model predictions.

The Random Forest classifier demonstrated moderate discrimination between participants with and without diabetes (ROC AUC = 0.878; PR AUC = 0.631) with acceptable calibration (Brier score = 0.127), and statistical significance confirmed by permutation testing (p = 0.010). SHAP analysis identified spatial QRS-T angle as the most influential predictor, followed by T-wave magnitude, systolic blood pressure, T-loop area, and body mass index. Repolarization-related VCG features consistently contributed the greatest influence on model predictions.

Diabetes is associated with measurable alterations in ventricular repolarization geometry, with spatial QRS-T angle and related VCG parameters emerging as key electrophysiological signatures. These findings suggest that metabolic dysregulation contributes to early electrical remodeling and highlight vectorcardiographic phenotyping as a potential noninvasive approach for investigating cardiometabolic influences on myocardial electrical function.