[Arrhythmia analysis--arrhythmia control (comparative studies of 4 small computers for automatic electrocardiography control)].

Four arrhythmia computers presently available on the market were tested with respect to their efficiency in identifying abnormal QRS-complexes. A considerable variation for the calculated sensitivity and specificity has been found with a highest value for sensitivity (92.9%) combined with a low specificity (72.4%), and a highest value for specificity (100%) combined with a very low sensitivity (36.6%). The best results were obtained by a computer with a sensitivity of 90.9% and a specificity of 98.5%. For the routine use of these computers in the CCU common artifacts (e.g. muscle potentials) must influence their performance in a practical way: neither should minor artifacts stop the function completely nor should the computer continue to measure with a high level of "noise". Based upon the results of these test series suggestions for the concept of arrhythmia computers for CCU are presented.