[Cardiac rhythm disorders in patients with chronic cor pulmonale]

Continuous ECG monitoring for many hours combined with echocardiography of the right heart, and determination of systolic pulmonary arterial blood pressure (by Burstin's test) and oxygen saturation of arterial blood were conducted in 68 patients with chronic pulmonary heart resulting from chronic nonspecific pulmonary diseases and 18 normal subjects, aged 30-50 years. Three degrees of right-ventricular hypertrophy have been identified on the basis of the electrocardiographic Minnesota code criteria, confirmed echocardiographically. The incidence of cardiac arrhythmias increased dramatically as hypertrophy progressed. Other arrhythmic risk factors are pulmonary arterial hypertension and arterial hypoxemia.