QT Variability Before and After Episodes of Nonsustained Ventricular Tachycardia in Patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

This study examined the changes in QT dynamics occurring during 5-minute intervals sampled immediately before and 1 hour after episodes of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Twenty-four hour Holter recordings were performed in 10 patients wi...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

This study examined the changes in QT dynamics occurring during 5-minute intervals sampled immediately before and 1 hour after episodes of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Twenty-four hour Holter recordings were performed in 10 patients with HCM in the absence of antiarrhythmic medications and processed by the ELA Medical QT analysis software. All sinus complexes were averaged over 30-second segments and 2,880 templates were created. For each template, a mean corrected QTec (time interval between the onset of QRS and the end of the T wave) and QTac (time interval between the onset of the QRS and the peak of the T wave) were calculated, with their standard deviations (SDQTe and SDQTa) taken as indices of QT variability. The slopes of the regression line for the QTe and QTa against the corresponding RR also were calculated. Forty 5-minute segments were analyzed immediately before (sample A) and 1 hour after (sample B) 20 episodes of nonsustained VT. QTac was significantly longer in group A than in group R (321 ± 20 vs 312 ± 22, P < 0.0001) and SDQTa was significantly lower (2.8 ± 1.2 vs 4.7 ± 3.7, P < 0.03). There were no significant differences in QTec, SDQTe, QTe/RR and QTa/RR before and after the episodes. Our data indicate that in patients with HCM, the averaged QTac is significantly longer and the QTa variability significantly lower before episodes of nonsustained VT. Ausführliche Beschreibung