Two Electrocardiographic Aberrations Important for All Caring for Patients to Know about

Abstract

Two electrocardiographic (ECG) aberrations encountered daily in ECG interpretation/overreading, which appear to be either unknown or ignored, by all caring for patients, are described herein: the 1st is the transient increase in the amplitude of QRS complexes in the right precordial ECG leads, leading to the erroneous diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy, often encountered in patients with episodes of supraventricular tachycardia, rapid sinus tachycardia, and atrial fibrillation; the 2nd is the spurious ST-segment elevations in lateral and/or inferior ECG leads in patients with right bundle branch block, interpreted by the automated ECG diagnostic algorithms as due to “acute myocardial infarction,” “ischemic injury,” “pericarditis,” and “early repolarization,” in the absence of such pathologies or electrophysiological explanations.