Predicting arrhythmias in primary prevention heart failure patients: picking up the fragments

Abstract

Identifying patients with high-risk heart failure (HF) who would benefit from an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) remains controversial. A potential marker for arrhythmic sudden death is fragmented QRS (fQRS). fQRS is the notching and slurring of the QRS complex in a 12-lead ECG and it indicates abnormal ventricular depolarisation and myocardial scarring and fibrosis. However, before fQRS complex can be included into selection criteria for ICD therapy, more complete reporting is required on their association with malignant arrhythmias, left ventricular remodelling and myocardial scarring/fibrosis in patients with HF. The molecular basis of the fQRS-arrhythmia-fibrosis connection in HF also needs to be explored. It is not widely appreciated that changes in the QRS complex and phases 0 and 1 of the ventricular action potential occur before contraction and predetermine Ca2+ release during contraction and later Ca2+ sparks. It is currently not known whether the different zig-zag patterns of the QRS are associated with aberrant Ca2+ cycling and arrhythmogenic sparks in patients with HF.