[Differential behaviour of blood pressure in patients with neurocardiogenic syncope during the initial stage of the tilt table test].

UNLABELLED

Neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS) is diagnosed by means of a head-up tilt table tests (HUTT). This is a prolonged test although early outcome predictors are known.

METHODS

We conducted a study among patients engaged in a syncope study protocol. We performed HUTT in all of them and compared the basal arterial pressure with the arterial pressure at the end of a the 70 degrees tilting.

RESULTS

We performed 185 HUTT studies. Systolic blood pressure (BP) raised 0.9% among patients with a negative test, whereas patients with a positive HUTT showed a 2.3% decrease (p = 0.2) in the same measurement. Diastolic BP increased 34% among negative HUTT patients and 14.9% among patients with positive test (p = 0.02). We calculated a relative risk of 1.45 for positive test when the combination of systolic BD decrease and dyastolic increase was present, according to the percentage of change (IC95%: 1.1 to 7.8).

CONCLUSIONS

The combination of systolic BP reduction and diastolic BP elevation at the end of the 70 degrees tilting is associated with an increased risk of having a positive HUTT. These changes might be related to differential sympathetic stimulation.