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Sixteen consecutive patients with familial amyloidosis with polyneuropathy of varying duration and severity underwent 24 hour ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring. A high incidence of sinus node dysfunction, supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias, and disturbances of atrioventricular conduction was found. Considerably more arrhythmias and disturbances of conduction were detected by long term electrocardiographic monitoring than by conventional 12 lead electrocardiograms. During a follow up period of three to 14 months five patients needed treatment by a pacemaker, three of them because of symptomatic complete heart block, one because of second degree heart block with heart failure, and one because of symptomatic dysfunction of the sinus node. The tachyarrhythmias did not require specific treatment. Long term electrocardiographic monitoring is a useful adjunct in the evaluation of patients with familial amyloidosis with polyneuropathy as it may detect otherwise unrecognised symptomatic disturbances of heart rhythm. The results may be valid also for other forms of amyloidosis involving the heart. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The mean pressure difference across the valve in aortic stenosis is an indicator of the severity of the obstruction to flow. Non-invasive determination of the mean pressure gradient by Doppler ultrasonography is, however, complicated by the squared relation between instantaneous velocities and pressure differences. The validity of a new simple formula for calculation of the mean pressure difference from the peak pressure difference was evaluated in 26 patients with aortic stenosis. The formula is: delta pmean = 0.64 delta ppeak, where delta pmean is the mean pressure gradient and delta ppeak the peak pressure gradient. There was a close correlation between the mean pressure differences determined by application of the formula to the peak pressure differences measured at catheterisation and the mean pressure differences obtained by planimetry (r = 0.97, SEE = 4.7 mm Hg). The correlation between mean pressure differences determined by continuous wave Doppler ultrasound and the formula and those measured by planimetry was also close (r = 0.91, SEE = 7.6 mm Hg) and only three patients showed a difference between the two methods of greater than 10 mm Hg. The new formula is a simple and reliable means of estimating the mean pressure difference from Doppler recordings and it facilitates the comparison of Doppler and catheterisation data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]