Long-term ECG in ambulatory clinical practice. Analysis and 2-year follow-up of 100 patients studied with a portable ECG tape recorder.

A portable tape recorder for long-term ECG monitoring is described. Its light weight (500 g) and small size (138 X 115 X 39 mm) make its usage in routine clinical practice a practical proposition. The most important application has been in the differential diagnosis of Adams--Strokes syndrome. The results from the first 100 patients with a 2-yr follow-up are presented. The importance of GCG recording during the patients' relevant subjective symptoms is stressed. The mean duration of recording was 2.8 days. In the 28 patients with histories which fitted the symptoms of Adams--Stokes syndrome this diagnosis was confirmed by an arrhythmia recorded simultaneously with the symptoms. In 36 other patients with a similar history the diagnosis was excluded becase of a normal ECG during subjective symptoms. Of the 28 patients with Adams--Stokes sydrome, bradyarrhthmia was the causal factor in 20 patients and these had a pacemaker implanted, whereas the remaining 8 patients had a tachyarrhythmia, which wa treated with antiarrhythmic drugs. The 2-yrs follow-up revealed an improvement and a disappearance of the Adams--Stokes attack in all the patients with an implanted pacemaker. In several of the 36 patients in whom Adams--Stokes syndrome could not be confirmed the syncopal attacks disappeared spontaneously. A large number of arrhythmias, including ventricular and supraventricular tachycardia, 2nd degree AV block and sinus bradycardia were observed during symptom-free intervals in these 36 patients. The introduction of long-term ECG recording routinely in patients with dizziness and syncope of unknown reason has resulted in an increase of the number of patients with a confirmed diagnosis of the Adams--Stokes syndrome, and it has contributed to an increase in the incidence of pacemaker implantation in Malmö from 130 per million inhabitants in 1971 to 220 in 1973, and 1974, respectively.