Three-minute ECG recording and arrhythmia detection in the evaluation and promotion of health.

OBJECTIVE

A regular electrocardiogram (ECG) performed for about 20 seconds may fail to detect arrhythmia, whereas a prolonged ECG may detect arrhythmia in cases where the regular ECG is negative. In the present study, we examined the effectiveness of a 3-minute ECG for detection of arrhythmia.

METHODS

The frequency of newly detected arrhythmia in the 3-minute ECG was calculated and compared between subjects and normal controls.

PATIENTS

Subjects with arrhythmia in a resting ECG and subjects with past histories or symptoms of arrhythmia or heart diseases (n=1,525) and randomly selected normal controls (n=363) who visited our hospital to check up their health were examined.

RESULTS

A regular ECG showed that 372 subjects had arrhythmia. Of the remaining 1,153 subjects, the 3-minute ECG detected arrhythmia in 104 subjects. Detection of arrhythmia in the 3-minute ECG was more frequent in the subjects than in normal controls (9.0% vs. 1.7%, p<0.05). The 3-minute recording detected arrhythmia more frequently in subjects with a past history of premature contraction or in subjects with palpitation than in the controls (10.0%, or 9.9% vs. 1.7%, p<0.05, respectively).

CONCLUSION

A 3-minute ECG recording appears to be useful for detecting premature contractions in subjects with a past history of premature contraction and/or palpitation, even if arrhythmia is not shown on a regular ECG recording at rest.