IMPACT OF AGE AND GENDER ON THE OUTCOME OF HEAD-UP TILT TEST IN PATIENTS WITH UNEXPLAINED SYNCOPE

Abstract

Objective: To determine the impact of age and gender on the outcome of head-up tilt testin patients with unexplained syncope. Methodology: This quasi experimental study was done at National Institute ofCardiovascular diseases Karachi and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi Institute of CardiologyMultan Pakistan from January to December 2018. Patients presented with unexplainedsyncope were included. 64 syncope patients were included and HUTT was done.Outcome including positive HUTT, response to HUTT, phase of HUTT and the effect ofage and gender in patients with unexplained syncope undergoing HUTT. Results: The mean age of patients was 63.39±6.94 years. There were 51 (79.7%)male while 13 (20.3%) were females. HUTT was found to be positive in 37 (57.8%)patients while 27 (42.2%) patients had negative HUTT. Mixed HUTT response wasobserved in 18 (48.6%) patients, cardio-inhibitory reposes in 8 (21.6%) patients whilevaso depressive response in 11 (17.2%) patients. Active HUTT phase was observed in30 (81.1%) patients while 7 (18.9%) patients had passive HUTT phase. The age andgender were found to have insignificant impact on HUTT findings (p>0.05). Conclusion: Thus the frequency of positive HUTT is high in unexplained syncopepatients. No significant difference was found in the frequency of responses to HUTTbetween the gender groups. The trend of the HUTT result significantly changed with age. Key Words: Syncope, Cerebral hypoperfusion, Hypotension, Head-up tilt test