A risk score of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction for targeted screening in the Chinese population

摘要

Cardiovascular autonomic (CA) dysfunction has become a major health concern in China following rapid lifestyle changes [1,2]. Individuals with previously undiagnosed CA dysfunction have an unfavorable cardiovascular risk profile [3,4]. Delay and lack of detection of the disease mostly results from patients being asymptomatic during its early stages [5,6]; therefore, the development of a simple and accurate screening tool to identify those at high risk of developing CA dysfunction will be of great value. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a simple, noninvasive and informative scoring system to characterize individuals according to their future risk of CA dysfunction. This study is a CA dysfunction factor survey carried out in a random sample of Chinese population [7]. Survey participants with undiagnosed CA dysfunction, aged 30-80 years, were included in this study. Subjects were excluded from the study to eliminate potential confounding factors that may have influenced their CA function [7]. Of these subjects, complete baseline data were obtained for 2092 (69.46%) of the participants without prior CA dysfunction history. Written consent was obtained from all patients before the study. The present study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Huashan Hospital, Shanghai, China.