The acuracy of heart rate adjusted ST segment depression of exercise electrocardiography test in diagnosis of coronary artery disease

Objective To evaluate several new ST segment depression variables in exercise electrocardiography test. Method Ninety seven patients who were later taken coronary angiography and 50 clinically normal subjects were recieved treadmill exercise electrocardiography tests under Bruce protocol. For each object, end exercise ST depression (STend), recovery ST depression (STrec), ST/HR index, and ST/HR hysteresis were determined from the standard 12 leads exercise electrocardiography excluding aVR lead.Results The results showed that the sensitivity and speciality of ST/HR hysteresis of both groups (angiography and clinical “normal” group) in diagnosis of coronary artery disease are higher than the other three variables ( P 0.05). Conclusion It is concluded that the accuracy of ST/HR hysteresis is definitely better than STend, STrec and ST/HR index because it actually represents the average difference in heart rate adjusted ST segment depression between the exercise and recovery phases regardless of the magnitude of heart rate decrease during the recovery phase.