Abstract 13369: Sympathovagal Imbalance Decades After Atrial Septal Defect Repair

Abstract

Introduction: Heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the autonomic nervous system activity, is a morbidity and mortality predictor. HRV is decreased in children with atrial septal defects (ASD) indicating parasympathetic withdrawal and sympathetic predominance, and increased right atrial end-diastolic pressure is believed to influence the sympathovagal balance. Despite the belief of a benign long-term outcome after closure, ASD patients have increased mortality rates after the age of 30 yrs. This may correlate to HRV, why we study HRV in adults after closure. Hypothesis: ASD patients have impaired HRV after closure when compared with controls. Methods: Surgically closed ASD patients (n=17, mean age 32±9 yrs., mean time since closure 19±8 yrs.), percutaneously closed ASD patients (n=18, mean age 28±7 yrs., mean time since closure 15±5 yrs.) and age- and gender-matched controls (n=15, mean age 30±9 yrs.) underwent a 48-hr Holter monitoring. Inclusion criteria were an age of minimum 2 yrs. at the time of diagnosis and minimum 3 yrs. must have passed since ASD closure. The following time-domain HRV measures were analyzed: SD of NN intervals (SDNN), SD of the average NN interval for each 5-minute segment, mean of the SDs of all NN intervals for each 5-minute (SDNNi), root mean square of successive RR interval differences (RMSSD), percentage of successive RR intervals that differ by >50 ms (pNN50), and triangular index. Results: Surgically closed ASD patients have an impairment of all time-domain parameters, while transcatheter closed patients have an impairment of half the parameters. Conclusion: These novel findings demonstrate a cardiac sympathovagal imbalance in adult patients several yrs. after ASD closure and may potentially explain why we observe a long-term morbidity and mortality increase in ASD patients.