Association of electrocardiographic morphology of exercise-induced ventricular arrhythmia with mortality.
BACKGROUND
The prognostic importance of exercise-induced ventricular arrhythmia (EIVA) may be confounded by the presence of lower-risk idiopathic right ventricular outflow tract arrhythmias with left bundle-branch block (LBBB) morphology.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether right bundle-branch block (RBBB)-morphology EIVA was associated with increased mortality.


METHODS
Retrospective cohort.


METHODS
Academic medical center.


METHODS
585 unique patients with EIVA and 2340 patients without EIVA, matched by age, sex, and risk factor, who were referred for exercise testing in an academic medical center.


METHODS
Deaths and ischemia and infarction found on perfusion scan.


RESULTS
During a mean follow-up of 24 months (SD, 13), 31 deaths occurred in the EIVA group compared with 43 deaths in the group without EIVA (5.3% vs. 1.8%; P < 0.001). Worse survival in patients with RBBB-morphology or multiple-morphology EIVA (6.9%) than in patients without EIVA caused this difference. Patients with LBBB-morphology EIVAs had a mortality rate (2.5%) similar to that of patients without EIVA (P = 0.93, log-rank test). Among patients without known atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, any RBBB-morphology EIVA was associated with death (hazard ratio, 2.73 [95% CI, 1.78 to 4.13]; P < 0.001), but LBBB-morphology EIVA was not (hazard ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.18 to 2.04]; P = 0.72).


CONCLUSIONS
Not all LBBB-morphology EIVA can be dismissed, and not all RBBB-morphology EIVA is high risk. Further evaluation of patients for structural heart disease was clinically driven, not protocol-driven.


CONCLUSIONS
Right bundle-branch block- or multiple-morphology EIVA is associated with increased mortality. Inclusion of patients with isolated LBBB-morphology EIVA, which often is idiopathic, may contribute to differences in the prognostic importance of EIVA in previous studies.
Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas 78234, USA. robert.eckart@us.army.mil
Robert E
RE
Eckart
Michael E
ME
Field
Tomasz W
TW
Hruczkowski
Daniel E
DE
Forman
Sharmila
S
Dorbala
Marcelo F
MF
Di Carli
Christine E
CE
Albert
William H
WH
Maisel
Laurence M
LM
Epstein
William G
WG
Stevenson
D000368:Aged; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000150:complications* / Q000209:etiology; D002037:Bundle-Branch Block / Q000150:complications*; D016757:Death, Sudden, Cardiac / Q000209:etiology*; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors