[Use of a Soviet-made device for recording late ventricular potentials]

Late ventricular potentials (LVP) were detected with an ECG signal-averaging installation developed at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, USSR Academy of Sciences. A total of 103 patients were examined: 33 with sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT), 30 with unsustained VT and high-grade ventricular premature contraction, 20 with coronary heart disease, postinfarction cardiosclerosis without arrhythmias and 20 apparently healthy subjects (controls). LVPs are the most susceptible to sustained VT in the presence of postinfarction cardiosclerosis (77%), their specificity is lower (70%). LVPs are a low sensitive marker (35%) for sustained idiopathic VT. In unsustained VT and high-grade premature ventricular contraction, LVPs were recorded infrequently in 1 (3%) of the 30 patients.