Heart rate variability in horses with acute gastrointestinal disease requiring exploratory laparotomy

Abstract

Reduced HRV was strongly associated with ischemic gastrointestinal disease and nonsurvival. HRV analysis is a noninvasive technique that may provide diagnostic and prognostic information pertinent to the management of postoperative horses with severe gastrointestinal disease.

Heart rate variability parameters as markers of the adaptation to a sealed environment (a hypoxic normobaric chamber) in the horse

“…Increased HR and decreased RR interval duration have been found in horses at the onset of transport, and these changes persisted during transportation until the horses arrived at their stables . Pasing Von Lewinski Wulf Erber and Aurich (2013) reported the same changes during semen collection and McConachie et al (2015) in horses admitted for more severe colic disease compared with those animals with a milder disease. These results were attributed to increased sympathetic activity, decreased parasympathetic activity or a combination of both (McConachie et al, 2015;Pasing et al, 2013;.…”

“…Pasing Von Lewinski Wulf Erber and Aurich (2013) reported the same changes during semen collection and McConachie et al (2015) in horses admitted for more severe colic disease compared with those animals with a milder disease. These results were attributed to increased sympathetic activity, decreased parasympathetic activity or a combination of both (McConachie et al, 2015;Pasing et al, 2013;. The same happened in our research, with an increase in HR and a reduction in RR interval duration during the first 1-3 days of the study.…”

“…These authors attributed these results to a parasympathetic inhibition with no (or less) sympathetic stimulation to attenuate it. Other authors found higher LF and lower HF values in non‐survival horses compared to survival horses with acute gastrointestinal disease (McConachie et al, ). Considering together these results, it could be hypothesized that stressful situations might trigger changes of different nature in spectral parameters.…”

“…In the spectral domain, HF components are considered a measure of vagal activity and LF components are markers of both sympathetic and vagal activity, whereas LF/HF ratio represents the autonomic nervous system balance. SD1 and SD2 represent instantaneous and long‐term HRV variability respectively (McConachie, Giguère, Rapoport, & Barton, ; Munsters et al, ; Schmidt, Aurich, et al, ; Schmidt, Möstl, et al, , Schmidt, et al, ; Vitale et al, ; Schönbom et al, ; Von Borrell et al, ).…”

Scoring System for Multiple Organ Dysfunction in Adult Horses with Acute Surgical Gastrointestinal Disease

“…Data collection has been described previously for cardiovascular variables evaluated herein and included measuring indirect mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), continuous telemetry for HRV, and echocardiography for stroke volume index using the 4‐chamber area‐length as previously described. , For clinicopathologic data, blood was collected in serum, calcium EDTA and citrate tubes for measurement of serum bile acids, total bilirubin, and cTnI concentrations, GGT and CK activities, platelet count, and PT, respectively, at admission and on Day 1 and Day 2. Serum and citrated plasma were separated in a temperature‐controlled centrifuge at 3000‐g for 30 minutes and stored at −80 °C for batch analysis at the University's clinical pathology laboratory, with the exception of cTnI which was analyzed with an ultrasensitive assay at a regional hospital.…”