Diagnostics
Minute-Scale Sleep-Onset HRV as a Candidate Risk-Stratification Biomarker for Diabetic Retinopathy: An Exploratory Pilot Study
By Yi-Ting Cheng, Yu-Cheng Lin, Yu‐Ting Ho and 2 others.
Abstract
Background
Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most common microvascular complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), yet DR screening coverage remains inadequate worldwide. Diabetic autonomic neuropathy typically precedes DR, and heart rate variability (HRV) provides a non-invasive autonomic measure; however, whether HRV can screen for DR remains unexplored.
Methods
This pilot study investigated whether sleep-onset minute-scale HRV indices—SDANN1 (standard deviation of 1-min segment means of normal-to-normal intervals) and SDANN2 (2-min segments)—serve as candidate screening biomarkers. Using a public 24-h Holter ECG dataset of T2DM inpatients (N = 39; 11 DR-positive, 28 DR-negative), sleep-onset time-points from cardiopulmonary coupling analysis were used to extract 30 min of post-onset ECG.