Breast cancer, particularly in metastatic stages, is associated with significant impairments in cardiac autonomic function and cardiorespiratory coordination during sleep.
Objective of this study was to evaluate cardiac autonomic function in female breast cancer patients on the basis of linear and non-linear heart rate variability (HRV) as well as on musical heart rate rhythmicity. The latter method has been recently developed and enables particularly the quantification of cardiorespiratory coordination solely on the basis of ECG recordings. To provide a broad basis of comparability, 37 breast cancer patients were compared with 37 age-matched healthy women and 40 age-matched female diabetic patients who serve as pathological controls. During night sleep, all parameters showed a tendency towards lower variability, complexity or rhythmicity of HRV in cancer patients. The most prominent alterations were found for the binary pattern predominance (PP) and for the ratio of heart rate and respiration. In particular, when comparing metastasized and non-metastasized cancer patients, the discriminatory power of binary heart rate rhythmicity emerges: the histograms of 1-h intervals during night sleep with a predominance of cyclically recurrent phase locking patterns unveiled a clear transition from higher to lower cardiorespiratory coordination ratios and to a loss of coordination capability in metastasized patients.
Bettermann et al. (2001) studied this question.