[Ventricular extrasystole in patients with metabolic syndrome]

The aim of the study was to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of ventricular extrasystole in patients developing metabolic syndrome. 24 hour echoCG monitoring was performed in 112 subjects above 15 yr meeting AHA/NHILBI 2005 criteria for metabolic syndrome corrected for the European population and in 107 metabolically neutral subjects. Significant differences were documented in the frequency of polytopic extrasystole (63.4 vs 46.2%; p = 0.01), morphology number (4.7 +/- 0.5 vs 2.3 +/- 0.7; p = 0.02), frequency of paired/group extrasystole (31.2 vs 18.7%; p = 0.02), number of extrasystoles in the longest chain (8.5 +/- 3.1 vs 3.7 +/- 2.2; p = 0.04). Strong (r < 0.5) positive correlation between the mean heart rate (HR) per 1 hour and the number of paired/group extrasystoles proved a highly specific sign of metabolic syndrome (100 and 89.5% respectively). Patients with metabolic syndrome more frequently had polytopic/group ventricular extrasystole associated with elevated mean HR.