[Mitral valve prolapse. Atrial stimulation, ajmaline test and "pharmacological denervation" in the evaluation of...

In patients with mitral valve prolapse syndrome (MVP) various electrophysiological abnormalities occur. There are convergent opinions concerning QT distance variability and the influence of autonomic nervous system on ventricular repolarization in this syndrome. In 38 MVP patients (group I) and 24 subjects without this abnormality (group II) ecg was recorded during transvenous right atrial pacing at baseline, after ajmaline administration and after pharmacological autonomic blockade (atropine + propranolol). The following ventricular repolarization parameters were analysed: QTe (distance to the end of T wave), JTe (distance between J point and the end of T wave--so called "pure repolarization"), QTdys (repolarization dispersion) and the corrected QTc.QTe during 90/min right atrial pacing was significantly shorter than QTc in both groups. QTc was abnormally prolonged (above 440 msec) in MVP group. Ajmaline administration prolonged QTe in group II only, whereas autonomic blockade resulted in marked shortening of QTe in MVP group. QTdys was significantly prolonged only after ajmaline administration in group II. Based on above results, the following conclusions are made: 1) Right atrial pacing technique may be used for calculating standardized QT distance, an alternative to corrected QT. 2) Ajmaline test is useless in ventricular repolarization estimations in MVP patients. 3) In MVP patients the influence of adrenergic system on ventricular repolarization at rest appears to be greater than in non-MVP subjects.