Prognostic significance of ventricular arrhythmias in coronary patients

Treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in coronary patients is based on the supposition that these forms of rhythm disorders have an adverse prognostic outcome. Initiated by the advent of ambulatory monitoring, several prospective studies have attempted to verify and to specify this assumption. Although the prognostic validity of ventricular arrhythmias could be demonstrated with respect to several prognostic criteria, the statistical significance of these associations was low. One reason for this result seems to be that adequate use has not yet been made of all the informations obtained in ambulatory monitoring. With respect to individual parameters, frequent premature beats and repetitive forms appear to be of particular prognostic importance, whereas the expected role of early premature beats has not been confirmed.