Heart rate turbulence and T wave alternation in myocardial electrical instability diagnostics

Abstract

Coronary heart disease (CHD) remains an actual problem in cardiology. One of the leading causes of CHD patient death is sudden cardiac death (SCD). In CHD patients, individual SCD risk varies substantially. According to modern views, instrumental methods play an important role in adverse outcome risk assessment. T wave alternation (TWA) and heart rate turbulence (HRT) are relatively new, non-invasive tests, providing valuable information on life-threatening arrhythmia risk in CHD patients. Comparing prognostic value of already known stratification tests to that of TWA and HRT, the authors demonstrated substantial clinical importance of the new methods.

Keywords

• t wave alternation
• sudden heart death
• ventricular tachyarrhythmias
• heart rate turbulence