Electrocardiographic changes in traumatized patients.

Traumatized patients who sustain a severe physical or psychological insult may develop myocardial ischemic changes, espicially those patients over the age of 40 years. The electrocardiogram (EKG) findings in 34 chest injury patients out of 200 multiple injury cases over a period of two years were studied. Two types of myocardial changes were found: injury pattern (of a permanent character) and ischemic pattern (of a transient nature). The first type was more frequent in the penetrating noncardiac chest injury cases, and the second more common in the blunt chest injury cases. It is necessary to make early and serial EKG tracings on traumatized patients in order to detect myocardial changes.