Heart rate variability as predictor of mortality in sepsis: A systematic review.

Background Autonomic dysregulation is one of the recognized pathophysiological mechanisms in sepsis, generating the hypothesis that heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to predict mortality in sepsis. Methods This was a systematic review of studies evaluating HRV as a predictor of death in patients with sepsis. The search was performed by independent researchers in PubMed, LILACS and Cochrane, including papers in English, Portuguese or Spanish, indexed until August 20th, 2017 with at least 10 patients. Study quality was assessed by Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. To analyze the results, we divided the articles between those who measured HRV for short-term recordings ( 1 hour), and those who did…