[Critical assessment of the criteria proposed for the ECG diagnosis of atrial loading].

Some criteria, proposed for the diagnosis of auricle loading have been evaluated during the study of 210 healthy subjects--87 patients with left auricle loading (LAL) and 71 patients with right auricle loading (RAL). The total duration of P wave differentiates a smaller LAL than the duration of PII. The ratio of P duration to PP segment in V1 has a poor specificity. The phenomena interatrial conduction disorder with left auricular retrograde activation has a low sensitivity on EGC for LAL, and with the orthogonal EGC--low sensitivity and specificity. The ratio of duration to amplitude of PII has a restricted value. LAL and RAL differ significantly but they are very bad results in the stages of left auricular dilation. The various ways of evaluation of the electric axis (digital or in degrees) have their place in the multidirectional pathological deviations--LAL and RAL.