Screening entire health system ECG databases to identify patients at increased risk of death.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Current methods to identify patients at higher risk for sudden cardiac death, primarily left ventricular ejection fraction ≤35%, miss ≈80% of patients who die suddenly. We tested the hypothesis that patients with elevated QRS-scores (index of myocardial scar) and wide QRS-T angles (index abnormal depolarization-repolarization relationship) have high 1-year all-cause mortality and could be further risk stratified with clinical characteristics.

Methods and results

We screened all 12-lead ECGs over 6 months at 2 large hospital systems and analyzed clinical characteristics and 1-year mortality. Patients with ECGs obtained in hospital areas with known high mortality rates were excluded. At the first hospital, QRS-score ≥5 and QRS-T angle ≥105° identified 8.0% of patien

SUBMITTER: Strauss DG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3992472 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature