SMALLNESS OR ABSENCE OF INITIAL POSITIVE DEFLECTIONS IN THE PRECORDIAL ELECTROCARDIOGRAM AND CARDIAC INFARCTION

Abstract

This study was undertaken primarily to determine the approximate accuracy of the precordial electrocardiogram as taken routinely in a general hospital in making or excluding the diagnosis of anterior cardiac infarction. Chest leads have been used clinically more and more since 1932. Several studies¹have been made of the variations noted in the precordial electrocardiograms of normal persons, and there have appeared numerous reports²of abnormalities in the chest lead observed in the presence of various types of heart disease, particularly cardiac infarction. In addition, there have been some important investigations³of direct and indirect chest leads following experimentally induced cardiac infarction in animals. In a review of the literature it became evident that the studies dealing with human material, with a few exceptions, were in large part correlations between the precordial electrocardiogram and the condition of the heart as determined<i>clinically</i>. Thus we encountered only