BACKGROUND: Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a chronic, inflammatory skin disease, recently associated with metabolic syndrome, subclinical atherosclerosis and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to investigate the hitherto unknown electrocardiographic changes associated with HS, which recently have been associated with significant cardiovascular burden.

METHODS: Data were derived from the cross-sectional population study, The Danish General Population Study (GESUS). HS diagnosis was based on a validated self-reported questionnaire and 404 individuals met the HS diagnosis criteria and 19,001 controls without HS were identified in the population. Severity of HS was staged according to a modified Hurley score. The electrocardiographic parameters, Heart Rate (HR), PR-interval, QRS-duration, JTc-interval and QTc-interval, were obtained from 12-lead resting electrocardiograms. We investigated the difference in means by unpaired t-test or the analysis of variance (ANOVA) test.

RESULTS: Heart rate was significantly higher (mean difference: 2.3 bpm [1.2:3.4] p<0.01) when adjusting for age and gender but when multivariate adjusting, there was no significant difference (0.3 bpm [-0.7:1.4] p=0.52). Severe HS was significantly associated with increased heart rate across all models (2.9 bpm [0.7:5.1] p=0.01). Mean QRS-duration was significantly shorter in the mild HS group, but not in the moderate- and severe HS groups CONCLUSION: Mean resting heart rate in severe HS was significantly higher compared to controls. Given that resting heart rate is associated with increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, and that HS patients have increased risk of cardiovascular events, this finding is potentially important, easily testable and intervenable. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.