Natural history and clinical significance of arrhythmias after acute cardiac infarction.

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of the electrocardiogram has shown the incidence of arrhythmias in acute myocardial infarction to be much higher than was previously thought. With this method, Julian, Valentine, and Miller (1964) found a serious arrhythmia in as many as 56 per cent of their patients, whereas in an earlier study with routine electrocardiograms, Master, Dack, and Jaffe (1937) found an arrhythmia in only 14 per cent of their patients, premature beats being excluded.