Late potentials in patients with hypertension

The presence of late potentials (LP) is considered as the evidence of an anatomical and electrophysiological condition which can give rise to life threatening ventricular arrhythmias. The aim of this work has been to study the incidence of LP in the setting of hypertension and to study their relation to ventricular hypertrophy on one hand and to ventricular arrhythmias on the other. Our study was conducted in 45 hypertensive patients (mean age +/- SD = 53 +/- 12). None of them had clinical evidences of a coronaropathy and only 5 had never been treated. For every patient we carried out a signal averaged electrocardiogram to detect LP, an echocardiogram to determine the myocardial mass index and 48 hours Holter monitoring to record ventricular arrhythmias filed according to the Lown classification. RESULTS: LP have been found in 13 patients. The following table summaries relations between LP, ventricular arrhythmias and myocardial hypertrophy: [table: see text] CONCLUSION: LP are frequently found in hypertensive patients (29%); their incidence is not higher in patients with left ventricular hypertrophy although they more frequently have serious ventricular arrhythmias; the severity of ventricular arrhythmias is not correlated with the presence of LP.