Clinical Usefulness of the Combination of T-Wave Alternans and Late Potentials for Identifying High-Risk Patients With Moderately or Severely Impaired Left Ventricular Function

Microvolt T-Wave Alternans for the Risk Stratification of Ventricular Tachyarrhythmic Events

“…ϭ sudden cardiac death VF ϭ ventricular fibrillation VT ϭ ventricular tachycardia from the meta-analysis: five studies were not prospective (12,16,19,35,38), five studies did not use primary data (21,22,27,29,34), two studies assessed pacing-induced T-wave alternans (5,25), one study had less than six months of follow-up (18), and one study did not provide enough primary data (31). An attempt was made to contact the author of the study that did not provide enough data (31).…”

Late Ventricular Potentials in Cardiac and Extracardiac Diseases

“…The combination of the two abnormalities may identify a highrisk group for SCD (Middelkauff et al, 1990;Fauchier et al, 1991). The combination of T wave alternans and SAECG, increases sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value for VT risk (Kondo et al, 2001). SAECG and body surface mapping (BSM) provide complementary information in patients with an old MI, and an important, significant correlation was found between isointegral QRST maximum and LAS40 and RMS40 (Mozos et al, 2008).…”

“…A correlation was found between QRS duration and end-diastolic volume after a few weeks after a MI. Some authors suggest that arrythmias are due to left ventricular dysfunction and do not depend on its etiology, considering that no differences were found in patients with myocardial ischemia or idiopathic cardiomyopathy (Kondo et al, 2001). Reentry explains the appearance of LVPs mainly in old myocardial infarctions, due to scarring.…”

Evaluation of Toxicity for Heart Failure Therapeutics

“…44 Other methods include heart rate variability, late potentials on signalaveraged ECG, QT dispersion, T-wave alternans, time to inscribe the second half of the T wave (T peak -T end ), and beat-to-beat variability of repolarization. 45,46,47,48,49,50 Although these tests have the potential to provide a more comprehensive assessment of repolarization reserve, validation is essential. A common failing of currently existing noninvasive assays of electric stability is high specificity for predicting fatal arrhythmias but low sensitivity.…”