Natural history of ST-segment potential distribution determined by body surface mapping in patients with acute inferior infarction

The authors studied the natural history of the electrocardiographic ST-segment using body surface mapping in 123 patients with acute inferior infarction who were not treated with thrombolytic agents. In 91 patients they compared body surface ST-segment maps recorded at 7.9 +/- 5.4 hours after the onset of acute myocardial infarction with maps recorded at 32.6 +/- 21.6 hours after infarction. In 46% of the patients the ST-segment distribution map pattern was unchanged. Twenty-eight percent of the patients moved to a ST-segment distribution associated with low mortality, and 7% correlated with a normal ST-segment distribution. Patients who started in a group dominated by marked anterior ST-segment depression or who developed this pattern at the time of the late map had a 45% morbidity, compared to 13% for patients who never developed this pattern (p less than 0.005). In a second group of 61 patients they compared maps recorded at 15.0 +/- 15.8 hours after infarction and repeat maps 19.6 +/- 13.0 recorded months later. At follow-up mapping, 44% of the patients correlated with a normal ST-segment distribution, 38% of patients had a low-risk pattern map and in 7% the map pattern was dominated by anterior ST-segment potential depression. The latter patients had a higher morbidity than patients in the other groups, but this did not reach statistical significance. Four of seven patients in this last group had significant angina at the time of follow-up mapping, compared to 2 of 54 patients in the other two groups (p less than 0.001).