Background Autonomic dysfunction is a prevalent clinical condition in chronic renal patients on hemodialysis and adds patient's worse cardiovascular outcome, some studies in several populations relate worse cardiorespiratory performance with higher dysautonomia, but among chronic renal patients on hemodialysis these studies are still limited. The aim of this study was to verify whether there is an association between autonomic cardiac dysfunction and walking test performance in hemodialysis

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... ents. Methods A cross-sectional study was performed in 61 patients undergoing hemodialysis therapy performed clinical examination, blood sampling, electrocardiography of heart rate variability and 6-minute walk test. Results There was a positive correlation between the 6 minute walking test and the heart rate variability variables RMSSD (r = 0.37 p = 0.005) and SD1 (r = 0.37 p = 0.0059) (Figures 1) (showing parasympathetic integrity), and there was a negative correlation with the pretest walking heart rate with these same variables (r = -0.33 p = 0.014) and (r = -0.34 p = 0.015) Regarding the walking test, it was negatively correlated with age (r = -0.39 p = 0.003) and positive with time on hemodialysis (r = 0.27 p = 0.04) Conclusions Therefore, it is verified that the 6-minute walking test can be used to estimate autonomic dysfunction in hemodialysis patients and thus help in the screening of this dysfunction including the elaboration of treatment strategies.