• William Andres Florez-Perdomo, Ezequiel García-Ballestas, Luis Rafael Moscote-Salazar, Subhas K Konar, Sumit Raj, Pradeep Chouksey, Adesh Shrivastava, Rakesh Mishra, and Amit Agrawal.
• Medicina General-Universidad Surcolombiana, Medico Investigador Concejo Latinoamericano de Neurointensivismo-CLaNi, Clinica Sahagún IPS SA, Córdoba, Colombia.
• World Neurosurg. 2021 Apr 1; 148: 80-89.

ObjectiveTo systematically review the medical literature to determine the utility of heart rate variability in predicting mortality for moderate to severe traumatic brain injury.MethodsA search for randomized controlled trials, nonrandomized trials, and prospective and retrospective cohort studies was carried out using PubMed, SCOPUS, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, and EMBASE. Reference lists of included studies were also searched to identify potentially eligible studies.ResultsFive articles comprising 542 patients met inclusion criteria. Heart rate variability as low-frequency/high-frequency ratio (area under the curve [AUC] receiver operating characteristic [ROC]) for predicting mortality was found to be statistically significant (AUC ROC 0.810, P < 0.001) with high heterogeneity (I2 = 61.98%, P = 0.032). Meta-analysis of low-frequency/high-frequency ratio, High frequency peak, and total power were statistically significant for predicting mortality. Odd's ratio for predicting mortality for LF/HF ratio, HF peak, and TP were 16.17, 19.09, 22.59 respectively. High-frequency peak in predicting mortality showed an AUC ROC of 0.986 (P ≤ 0.001) with a low level of heterogeneity. Total power (TP) showed an AUC ROC of 0.93 (P < 0.001) in predicting mortality with a high level of heterogeneity (I2 = 83.16%, P = 0.002). Funnel plot analysis to assess the presence of publication bias for TP showed a high level of heterogeneity and asymmetry among studies.ConclusionsThis meta-analysis predicted high mortality based on odds ratio for variables low-frequency/high-frequency ratio, high-frequency peak, and TP. However, the statistical analysis was weakened owing to the high level of heterogeneity in the included studies. Further research is needed to generate high-quality recommendations regarding heart rate variability as a predictor of mortality after traumatic brain injury.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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