[A predictive value of ventricular tachycardia detected by long-term electrocardiography for sudden cardiac death].

To investigate the predictive value of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) for sudden cardiac death (SCD), 104 patients (37 cases with myocardial disease, 17 with ischemic heart disease, 10 with hypertension, 5 with valvular heart disease, 5 with miscellaneous heart disease and 31 without heart disease) who had NSVT on 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiograms (DCG) were clinically followed. The first survey was performed when mean follow-up period reached to 26 months from the discovery of NSVT and the second one was done 60 months after the first survey. Seven SCD were found during 1st period and 4 additional SCD occurred during 2nd period. The patients with polymorphic NSVT showed more frequent SCD (6 in 11 cases with polymorphic NSVT) than with monomorphic NSVT (5 in 93 cases with monomorphic NSVT), however, the rate of VT, duration and number of episodes recorded on DCG were independent to SCD. Moreover, none of the patients without structural cardiac disease have died suddenly. In this follow-up study, SCD was occurred most frequently in the cases with cardiomyopathy, especially dilated type.