Temporal and positional variability of the ST segment during continuous vectorcardiography monitoring in healthy subjects.

Continuous vectorcardiography ST-segment monitoring (cVST) is a well-established method in the diagnosis and risk evaluation of patients with acute myocardial ischemia. Previous investigations have demonstrated that electrocardiographic ST-segment changes are to be expected, during both repeated measurements and changes in body position. We prospectively analyzed the influence of spontaneous temporal variation (technical and biological noise) and changes in body position on the ST segment (ST-vector magnitude [ST-VM]) during cVST of 21 healthy human subjects. The 95% expectancy range of the spontaneous intraindividual ST-VM variation was found to be +/-8 microV for the error of measurement, and +/-14 and +/-24 microV during 24-hour and day-to-day cVST measurements, respectively. Positional ST-segment changes in the orthogonal leads were frequent, especially in leads X and Z, and in the left lateral position. Positional orthogonal ST-segment changes resulted in significant ST-VM changes in two of seven subjects. It is concluded that the low spontaneous temporal ST-VM variation must be considered as good reproducibility. Moreover, the present findings support currently used ST-VM ischemia criteria. However, the impact of positional changes on ST-VM seems to be of importance (with the possibility of false-positive results) and should be taken into account during cVST.