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The hypothesis that the Poincaré plot indexes of heart rate variability (HRV) detect dynamic changes after haemodialysis (HD) over the HRV in haemodynamically stable chronic renal failure (CRF) patients was examined. Minor axis (SD1), major axis (SD2) and the SD1/SD2 ratio were compared against standard HRV indexes in time and frequency domain, in a group of healthy subjects and in a group of CRF patients before and after HD. These indexes were estimated from Poincaré plots reconstructed with lags of one, two and four heartbeats. The surrogate data analysis technique was applied in order to discern if only random components or linear features of HRV contribute to its dynamics. None of the standard linear HRV indexes changed after HD. The Poincaré plot indexes measured from CRF patients were smaller than the ones measured from healthy subjects. In CRF patients the SD1/SD2 ratio decreased after HD, when a lag of four heartbeats was used (0.68 +/- 0.19 before HD versus 0.55 +/- 0.12 after HD, P0.05). The presence of deterministic components in HRV were confirmed for all measures of the SD1/SD2 ratio. Moreover, a loss of non-linear components after HD was detected by the surrogate analysis over the SD1/SD2 ratio with a lag of four heartbeats. In conclusion, the SD1/SD2 ratio measured at lag of 4 heartbeats capture dynamic changes after HD upon the HRV of CRF patients that are not solely related to linear autocorrelations of HRV. This suggests that the SD1/SD2 ratio reflects non-linear information of HRV.