The normal pediatric Frank orthogonal electrocardiogram: influence of weight, height and chest circumference

The influence of body weight, height and chest circumference on the pediatric Frank vectorcardiogram (VCG) was investigated in a population of 1317 normal infants, children and adolescents. Simple linear regression analysis showed that 94, 96 and 57 VCG variables were significantly correlated with weight, height and chest circumference, respectively. These numbers were reduced to 10, 18 and 6 VCG variables after a stepwise multiple correlation analysis. The relationship between the VCG and the somatic variables was also studied in ten different age/sex subgroups. Simple regression analysis showed a residual significant correlation between the VCG and all three somatic variables in each group. The multiple correlation analysis allowed us to define a minimum set of VCG variables, from one to six, which could explain all the variation produced by the somatic variables. The coefficient of multiple correlation between VCG and weight was the highest in babies 0 to 6 months old (R = 0.73). For height, the strongest correlation was found in females two to five years old (R = 0.76). In subjects older than two years of age, the correlation between chest circumference and VCG (R = 0.30 to 0.69) was weaker than between VCG and pediatric VCG after stratification for age and sex, especially in the youngest groups.