Comparative study of short-term cardiovascular autonomic control in cardiac surgery patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting or correction of valvular heart disease

Introduction: our aim was to perform a comparative study of short-term cardiovascular autonomic control in cardiac surgery patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (cabg) or surgical correction of valvular heart disease (scvhd). methods: the synchronous 15 minutes records of heart rate variability (hrv) and finger’s photoplethysmographic waveform variability (ppgv) were performed in 42 cardiac surgery patients (12 women) aged 61.8 ± 8.6 years (mean ± standard deviation), who underwent cabg, and 36 patients (16 women) aged 54.2 ± 14.9 years, who underwent scvhd, before surgery and in 5-7 days after surgery. conventional time and frequency domain measures of hrv and index s of synchronization between the slow oscillations in ppgv and hrv were analyzed. we also calculated personal dynamics of these indices after surgery. results: we found no differences (р > 0.05) in all studied autonomic indices (preoperative and post-surgery) between studied patients’ groups, except for the preoperative heart rate, which was higher in patients who underwent scvhd (p = 0.013). we have shown a pronounced preoperative and post-surgery variability (magnitude of inter-quartile ranges) of all autonomic indices in studied patients. in the cluster analysis based on cardiovascular autonomic indices (preoperative and post-surgery), we divided all patients into two clusters (38 and 40 subjects) which did not differ in all clinical characteristics (except for the preoperative hematocrit, p = 0.038), index s, and all post-surgery hrv indices. first cluster (38 patients) had higher preoperative values of the hr, tp, hf, and hf%, and lower preoperative values of the lf% and lf/hf. conclusion: the variability of cardiovascular autonomic indices in on-pump cardiac surgery patients (two characteristic clusters were identified based on preoperative indices) was not associated with their clinical characteristics and features of surgical procedure (including cardioplegia).