Prevalence and time of appearance of Brugada electrocardiographic pattern in young male adolescents from a three-year follow-up study.

The prevalence of Brugada's electrocardiographic (ECG) pattern in 7,022 male adolescents in the seventh grade was determined, and the same subjects were reexamined 3 years later, while in tenth grade. Two subjects (0.03%) and 7 subjects (0.10%) showed Brugada's ECG pattern by the conventional criterion (J point or ST-segment >/=0.1 mV in leads V(1) to V(3)), and no subjects (0%) and 2 subjects (0.03%) fulfilled the recent criterion (J point or ST-segment >/=0.2 mV) in the seventh and tenth grades, respectively, indicating that Brugada's ECG pattern begins to appear during junior high school and increases until late adulthood.