ST changes and temporal relation to the J point during heart rate increase and myocardial ischemia.

There is no concensus concerning where in the ST segment to measure. We studied the relation between different J point intervals to ST results during tachycardia and ischemia. Symptomatic (anesthetized) patients with coronary artery disease were paced at ascending incremental levels until they became ischemic. ST vector magnitude and ST vector change from baseline (STC-VM) as well as the sum of ST changes from all 12 electrocardiogram (ECG) leads (ECG ST sum) were measured at J point 0 millisecond, J + 20, J + 60, and J + 80 milliseconds for 34 patients. ST segments increased in similar fashion during pacing and ischemia. There was no difference in ST results when measurement was performed at different time intervals for both STC-VM and ECG ST sum. We conclude that ST assessment by ST change from baseline is not affected by different J point intervals during increased heart rate and ischemia in this clinical model of pacing-induced ischemia and vectorcardiographic ST analysis.