Key result
Presymptomatic and early Huntington's disease linked to ~10% lower heart rate response to mental arithmetic.
Why the study?
Although autonomic dysfunction was found in advanced Huntington’s disease patients, it is unclear whether autonomic dysfunction occurs in presymptomatic and early symptomatic HD.
Do presymptomatic and early symptomatic Huntington's disease patients exhibit cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction compared to healthy controls?
Case-Control (n=50)
Do presymptomatic and early symptomatic Huntington's disease patients exhibit cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction compared to healthy controls?
p-value: p=<0.05
Subtle cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction is present even in presymptomatic and early symptomatic stages of Huntington's disease.
May warrant autonomic screening in early HD; leaves open prognostic value and management impact.
Kobal J, Melik Z, Cankar K, Bajrovic FF, Meglic B, Peterlin B, Zaletel M. Autonomic dysfunction in presymptomatic and early symptomatic Huntington’s disease.Acta Neurol Scand: 2010: 121: 392–399.© 2009 The Authors Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Munksgaard. Objectives – Although autonomic dysfunction was found in advanced Huntington’s disease (HD) patients it is not clear whether there is autonomic dysfunction in presymptomatic and early symptomatic HD. Material & methods – Different cardiovascular autonomic tests were performed in 14 presymptomatic HD mutation carriers (PHD), 11 early symptomatic HD patients (EHD) and in 25 sex and age matched controls. Results – We found attenuated response to simple mental arithmetic test (relative heart rate in PHD and EHD was 10% lower than in controls; diastolic pressure was 10.6% lower in EHD than in controls; P < 0.05) and exaggerated response to the late phase of cold pressor test (relative heart rate was 10% higher in PHD and 7% higher in EHD than in controls; P < 0.05). The rest of the cardiovascular autonomic tests did not reveal significant differences between patients and controls. Conclusions – Our results suggest that subtle autonomic dysfunction occurs even in PHD and EHD.
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Kobal et al. (2009) conducted a case-control in Huntington's disease (n=50). Huntington's disease mutation status vs. Sex and age matched controls was evaluated on Cardiovascular autonomic test responses (p=<0.05). Presymptomatic and early symptomatic Huntington's disease patients exhibited subtle autonomic dysfunction, including a 10% lower relative heart rate response to mental arithmetic than controls (P<0.05).
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