Abstract
BACKGROUND: A significant proportion of cancer patients experience autonomic dysfunction, and cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy can exacerbate impairments in the cardiac autonomic nervous system. This study sought to investigate the characteristics of heart rate variability (HRV) in individuals with cancer. AIM: To evaluate the relationship between HRV and cancer patients, providing insights and references for cancer treatment. METHODS: The study included 127 cancer patients with available 24-hour dynamic electrocardiogram data. HRV differences were analyzed using both time domain and frequency domain methods. These findings were then compared to HRV data from reference individuals, sourced from literature that utilized the same HRV computing algorithm. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that cancer patients generally exhibited abnormal HRV compared to the reference group. HRV was found to be correlated with age and clinical type (P < 0.05), but no significant correlation was observed with tumor site or gender (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: This study indicates that cancer patients have significantly abnormal HRV compared to reference individuals, suggesting the presence of a certain level of cardiac autonomic dysfunction in this patient population.