PD2i heart rate complexity measure can detect Cardiac autonomic neuropathy: An alternative test to Ewing battery

This study evaluates the usefulness of a new heart rate variability (HRV) complexity measure, the Point Correlation Dimension (PD2i), derived from short term ECG recordings, as a screening tool for Cardiac autonomic neuropathy (CAN). The PD2i was developed to measure complexity in nonstationary data with some tolerance for background noise. ECG recordings during supine rest were acquired from diabetic subjects with CAN (CAN+) [10 subjects] and without CAN (CAN-) [33 subjects] and analyzed. PD2i indices (mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum) were used for analyzing HRV signals of all subjects. Significantly reduced (p <; 0.01) PD2i indexes were found in CAN+ group, which could be a practical diagnostic and prognostic marker.