Prevalence and Prognostic Value of Early Repolarization in Low Risk Surgical Patients

Recent epidemiological studies documented that early repolarization may be associated with increased risk of serious cardiac events, including cardiac death. Little is known about the prognostic significance of this pattern in low risk surgical patients. This retrospective study included 3028 patients over 18 years of age and with ASA class I and II risk, undergoing noncardiac elective surgery. We followed the patients for one year. Early repolarization in preoperative ECG was found in 219 patients (7.2%) and patients with early repolarization were more likely to be male and younger. Newly observed cardiac events were significantly higher in the early repolarization group (1.37% versus 0.21%; P = 0.003). Multivariate regression analysis reveals that early repolarization (odds ratio: 6.019, P = 0.013) significantly increased newly observed cardiac events. Our retrospective study suggests that low risk surgical patients with early repolarization have statistically higher opportunity of newly observed cardiac events within one year after surgery.