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Departments of 1 General Medicine, 2 Cardiology, and 3 Medicine, Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand
The importance
of cardiac output (CO) to blood pressure level during vasovagal syncope
is unknown. We measured thermodilution CO, mean blood pressure (MBP),
and leg muscle mean sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) each minute
during 60° head-up tilt in 26 patients with recurrent syncope. Eight
patients tolerated tilt (TT) for 45 min (mean age 60 ± 5 yr) and
15 patients developed syncope during tilt (TS) (mean age 58 ± 4 yr, mean tilt time 15.4 ± 2 min). In TT patients, CO decreased
during the first minute of tilt (from 3.2 ± 0.2 to 2.5 ± 0.3 l · min
1 · m
2,
P = 0.001) and thereafter remained stable between
2.5 ± 0.3 (P = 0.001) and 2.4 ± 0.2 l · min
1 · m
2
(P = 0.004) at 5 and 45 min, respectively. In TS
patients, CO decreased during the first minute (from 3.3 ± 0.2 to
2.7 ± 0.1 l · min
1 · m
2,
P = 0.02) and was stable until 7 min before syncope,
falling to 2.0 ± 0.2 at syncope (P = 0.001). Regression slopes for CO versus time during tilt were
0.01 min
1 in TT versus
0.1
l · min
1 · m
2 · min
1
in TS (P = 0.001). However, MBP was more closely
correlated to total peripheral resistance (R = 0.56, P = 0.001) and MSNA (R = 0.58, P = 0.001) than CO (R = 0.32, P = 0.001). In vasovagal reactions, a progressive
decline in CO may contribute to hypotension some minutes before syncope occurs.
tilt test; neurocardiogenic syncope; vasodilatation
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