Signal-averaged electrocardiographic late potentials in patients with ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia: correlation with clinical arrhythmia and electrophysiologic study.

High-frequency potentials measured in the terminal 40 ms of the signal-averaged QRS complex during sinus rhythm are of abnormally low amplitude in most patients with ventricular tachycardia (VT). However, less is known about high-frequency late potentials in patients with ventricular fibrillation (VF), and the relation between late potentials and arrhythmia inducibility during electrophysiologic study has not been established. Signal-averaged electrocardiography was used to measure high-frequency (more than 25 Hz) late potentials in 24 patients with spontaneous VF, 27 patients with spontaneous sustained VT, and 19 normal subjects, none of whom were receiving antiarrhythmic drugs. Late-potential amplitude in patients with VT was significantly lower than that in patients with VF (p less than 0.02). Late-potential amplitude in patients with VF was not significantly different from that in normal subjects. Ventricular arrhythmia induction was attempted during electrophysiologic study in 46 of the patients with VF or VT. Late-potential amplitude was significantly lower in 26 patients with reproducibly inducible sustained ventricular arrhythmias than in 20 without (p less than 0.001). The correlation between late-potential amplitude and arrhythmia inducibility was independent of that between late-potential amplitude and clinical arrhythmia (VT vs VF).