Subject-specific profiles of QT/RR hysteresis

The time lag of the QT interval adaptation to heart rate changes (QT/RR hysteresis) was studied in 40 healthy subjects (18 females; mean age, 30.4+/-8.1 yr) with 3 separate daytime (>13 h) 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECG) in each subject. In each recording, 330 individual 10-s ECG segments were measured, including 100 segments preceded by 2 min of heart rate varying greater than +/-2 beats/min. Other segments were preceded by a stable heart rate. In segments preceded by variable rate, QT/RR hysteresis was characterized by lambda parameters of the exponential decay models. The intrasubject SDs of lambda values were compared with the intersubject SD of the individual means. The lambda values were also correlated to individually optimized parameters of heart rate correction. Intrasubject SDs of lambda were substantially smaller than the population SD of individual means (0.390+/-0.197 vs. 0.711, P<0.0001). The lambda values were unrelated to the QT/RR correction parameters. When compared with the corrected QT (QTc) for averaged RR intervals in 10-s ECGs and with the averaged RR intervals in 2-min history, QTc for QT/RR hysteresis led to a substantially smaller SD of QTc values (11.4+/-2.00, 6.33+/-1.31, and 4.66+/-0.85 ms, respectively, P<0.0001). Thus the speed with which the QT interval adapts to heart rate changes is highly individual with intrasubject stability and intersubject variability. QT/RR hysteresis is independent of the static QT/RR relationship and should be considered as a separate physiological process. The combination of individual heart rate correction with individual hysteresis correction of the QT interval is likely to lead to substantial improvements of cardiac repolarization studies.