Relation between the ventriculographic silhouette and topography of thoracic potential in coronary artery disease

The body surface potential map obtained within 30 days of cardiac catheterization was examined in 180 patients with coronary artery disease. Radii to the systolic and diastolic boundaries of the right anterior oblique ventriculogram were measured at 18 ° intervals; isointegral voltages were tabulated for early and late halves of the QRS complex at 35 definitive electrode sites. Multivariate analysis showed all ray lengths depended on all 70 voltage values. Linear transformation matrices to predict ray length from voltage distribution were calculated for a training set which was successively expanded from 80 to 160 at increments of 20 patients. Training set expansion led to a progressive decrease in the error of reproduction of the ray lengths for patients outside the training set. There is a strong relation between ventriculographic contours in patients with coronary artery disease and body surface potential values during early and late QRS complexes. Even in simplified linear formulation, the relation is detectable throughout a large population despite interindividual variations in anatomic geometry.