Ambulatory electrocardiography signal averaging. Practicalities, clinical value, and potential applications

Ability to perform high-resolution ECG from Holter tapes would significantly increase the utility of ambulatory monitoring as a screening tool for detecting the risk of serious ventricular arrhythmias without the cost and inconvenience of making a separate real-time recording. Despite some theoretical objections focusing on the relatively poor high-frequency response of Holter systems, it has nevertheless been shown to be both reasonable and practical to use them for late potential analysis. Technical issues, history, clinical results, and bibliography are presented in reviewing the current status of this emergent technique that shows promise for combining two techniques already shown to have independent diagnostic and prognostic value.