title: The electrocardiogram as an index of left ventricular function in coronary heart disease.
abstract: To determine the utility of conventional electrocardiographic criteria for the assessment of left ventricular function, we applied pre-determined criteria to the analysis of the ECGs of 171 patients with chronic coronary disease. Eighty patients had no criteria for infarction. Seventeen had a criterion for anterior, 59 a criterion for inferior, three for strict lateral, four for true posterior and eight for combined infarction. Of the 59 with inferior infarction, 25 had QaVF greater than or equal to 0.03 sec. These 25 together with the 25 with anterior or combined infarction constituted a subgroup of 50 patients which included 35 of the 44 (80 percent) of those with an ejection fraction less than 0.50. Among the remaining 121, only nine (7 percent) had a depressed ejection fraction. Thus, the ECG criteria identified correctly 147 (86 percent) patients with regard to the presence or absence of left ventricular dysfunction.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D013318:Stroke Volume