ECGs lead to fewer heart operations

An electrocardiogram (ECG) can be used to predict the course of an individual patient’s disease, resulting in fewer operations, new study performed at Rigshospitalet shows.

Traditionally, heart patients have been classified according to how constricted their cardiac valve has become, and thereafter whether they could tolerate major surgery to replace the valve.

But the need for such operations is likely to decrease as a result of a new discovery at Rigshospitalet which shows that electrocardiograms (ECGs) can be used to determine more precisely how a patient’s heart actually reacts to the constricted valve. This makes medical staff better at deciding whether a patient really needs surgery.

- As the results make it possible to tailor the treatment to each individual patient, rather than give all patients the same treatment, the prognosis for these patients can be better, says Anders Greve, a doctor and PhD student at the Copenhagen University Hospital’s Heart Center, who headed the project.

- The same degree of constriction of the heart valve does not necessarily require precisely the same treatment, such as surgery to replace the valve, says Dr Anders Greve and continues. There are about 1,000 heart valve operations a year in Denmark. If we transfer our results to this figure, we will probably be able to cut the number of operations by 10-15 percent – but that’s a guesstimate, says Dr Anders Greve.

The discovery has gained the attention and recognition of heart researchers throughout the world and was recently published in one of the world’s leading journals on heart diseases, Circulation.

The study is based on ECGs from 1,536 patients, whose progress was monitored by Greve and his colleagues over almost five years. All of these patients had sclerosis and initial stages of constriction of the cardiac valve – the part of the heart that prevents blood flowing the wrong way when the heart beats.

The study was made possible via a Scandinavian network using data from patients with the heart condition in question. The network SCARF is funded by the InterReg IVA programme and initiated by Doctor Kristian Wachtell, Gentofte Hospital.

Read original article published at ScienceNordic.com