HEART-RATE AND BLOOD-PRESSURE VARIABILITY IN CARDIAC DISEASES - PHARMACOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Even at rest, blood pressure and heart rate fluctuate continuously aro und their mean values. Considerable interest has recently focused on t he assessment of spontaneous fluctuations in heart rate and blood pres sure, ie, heart rate and blood pressure variability, using time or fre quency domain indexes. Heart rate variability has been extensively stu died in cardiovascular disease and has emerged as a valuable parameter for detecting abnormalities in autonomic cardiovascular control, eval uating the prognosis and assessing the impact of drug therapy on the a utonomic nervous system in patients with myocardial infarction, conges tive heart failure or a heart transplant. In contrast, until the recen t development of noninvasive methods for continuous blood pressure rec ording, blood pressure variability received little attention, and this parameter remains to be evaluated in cardiovascular disease.