Introduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic condition characterized by hyperglycemia precipitating because of the complete or partial absence of the insulin hormone. DM has been often associated with a wide range of complications (viz., cardiovascular diseases, nephropathy, retinopathy, and neuropathy), all of which can result in morbidity, disability, and even mortality.1,2 Cardiac autonomic neuropathy (CAN) is described as impairment of autonomic nerve fibers that innervate the heart and blood vessels resulting in abnormalities of heart rate and vascular dynamics. 3 The presence of CAN increases the risk for severe hypoglycemia, silent myocardial ischemia, stroke, preoperative morbidity, and mortality even in minor surgical procedures.4,5 Aim: To study the prevalence of cardiac autonomic neuropathy in patients of diabetes mellitus Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted in Department of Medicine, Santosh Medical College and Hospital, Uttar Pradesh. 100 individuals who were diagnosed case of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and cardiac autonomic neuropathy after approved ethical standards and fulfilling inclusion and exclusion criteria were taken for the study. The Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Tukey’s post-hoc tests was used to compare continuous variables. Results: Mean age of the patients was 50.15±9.04 years. Out of which 44.4% males and 46.9% were females. Cardiac autonomic neuropathy were more in patients having raised HbA1c (>7%), raised total leucocyte count, blood sugars. There was a significantly higher incidence of HbA1c with cardiac autonomic neuropathy as compared to no cardiac autonomic neuropathy. HbA1c with CAN showed M.D+ S.D. = 1.07, 8.48±1.59, HbA1c without CAN showed M.D.+ S.D. = 8.06±0.64 Conclusions: This study concluded that prevalence of CAN was 46% in diabetes patients and definite CAN being 67.4%. Even though cardiac autonomic neuropathy can be detected by various invasive tests, noninvasive tests remain a key tool to detect it in the remote settings in a cost-effective and user-friendly manner without making people visit higher centers.
