The Time Factor in Electrocardiography Following Chest Surgery

¹ The Division of Chronic Pulmonary Disease of Freedmen's Hospital and the Department of Medicine, Howard University, Washington, D. C.

Review of pre-operative electrocardiograms on 95 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis who were candidates for chest surgery revealed one abnormal electrocardiogram. Comparison of the pre-operative and post-operative electrocardiograms (one to four months after completion of surgery) of 51 indicated that approximately 50 per cent showed some electrocardiographic changes. Only one, however, had an electrocardiogram indicating myocardial disease and it was compatible with pericarditis and myocardial damage. In all of the others the differences noted could apparently be explained by positional changes in the heart and mediastinum.

Analysis of electrocardiograms on 28, two to ten years following chest surgery, showed that two had evidence of heart disease, neither of which were compatible with the findings in pulmonary heart disease. It is pointed out that electrocardiographic findings without reference to cardiac position may be misleading with reference to the existence of right ventricular hypertrophy.

The importance of the time factor in explaining many of the divergent reports on the frequency and nature of electrocardiographic findings following chest surgery is stressed.