Decarto technique in long-term observation of patients treated for primary pulmonary hypertension

Techniques for noninvasive observation of heart states play an important part in experimental and therapeutic cardiology. The objective of this work is to describe a new method for intelligible pictorial representation of data acquired by an orthogonal electrocardiographic lead system and demonstration of possibilities of this method in estimating the results of longterm treatment for a cardiac disease. The method used, dipole electrocardiotopography (DECARTO), provides a set of maps (decartograms) that depict in an explicit form the instantaneous, as well as integral electrophysiological properties of the heart during the excitation cycle. The observed group of patients contained 10 females and 2 males with primary pulmonary hypertension. It was found that in all but one cases tested, the features of the maps strongly correlated with the results of the other diagnostical methods and clinical findings. The trends to improvement (6 cases), stabilization (4 cases), or deterioration (1 case) of the heart state were clearly indicated. In one case, however, the interpretation of the decartograms was ambiguous. The advantage of the DECARTO technique lays in clearness of data representation for visual analysis and facilitation of electrophysiological and anatomical interpretation of the data. (Fig. 6, Ref. 2)