[Prediction of inducible ventricular tachycardia by signal averaged electrocardiogram in patients with healed myocardial infarction].

Induction of ventricular tachycardia by programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) is believed to be the most reliable clinical test which predicts high risk group of clinical ventricular tachycardia (VT) and sudden cardiac death (SCD) after acute myocardial infarction (MI). On the other hand, late potential (LP) detected by signal averaged electrocardiogram (SAECG) may also predict high risk group of clinical VT in MI. We compared the usefulness of these two tests. LP in SAECG could roughly predict patient group with induced sustained monomorphic VT. Moreover, PVS clearly identified non-high risk group of clinical VT or SCD which have no inducible sustained monomorphic VT with high negative predictive value. It was concluded that SAECG should be used as a screening test for life-threatening arrhythmia, and those patients who have LP should undergo PVS study to clarify the actual risk of VT and/or SCD.