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. 2021 Sep 30;26(6):e12894. doi: 10.1111/anec.12894

FIGURE 6.

FIGURE 6

Left panel: Time course of effects of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy on heart rate turbulence (HRT) slope (upper panel), T‐wave alternans (TWA) (middle panel), and numbers of patients with nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) >3 beats (lower panel) in the Autonomic Neural Regulation Therapy to Enhance Myocardial Function in Heart Failure (ANTHEM‐HF) Pilot study. The increase in HRT slope is associated with the beneficial effect of increasing baroreceptor sensitivity. Mean TWA was reduced from >70 µV, a severely abnormal level (≥60 µV), to a normal range (<47 µV). The number of patients with NSVT was also significantly decreased by chronic VNS therapy. Middle panels: Significant improvement in R‐wave and T‐wave heterogeneity (RWH and TWH) occurred at 6 months following initiation of VNS and persisted throughout the study. Right panel: Substantial, sustained reductions RWH and TWH in a representative study patient. Tracings were obtained at baseline screening and at 6 and 36 months after VNS device implantation. Left panel: *p = .03 compared with screening; **p = .02 compared with screening; †p < .05 compared with prior. Reprinted with permission from Nearing et al. (2021)