SMALLNESS OR ABSENCE OF INITIAL POSITIVE DEFLECTIONS IN THE PRECORDIAL ELECTROCARDIOGRAM AND CARDIAC INFARCTION: A STUDY OF PATIENTS WHO CAME TO AUTOPSY

This study was undertaken primarily to determine the approximate accuracy of the precordial electrocardiogram as taken routinely in a general hospital in making or excluding the diagnosis of anterior cardiac infarction. Chest leads have been used clinically more and more since 1932. Several studies 1 have been made of the variations noted in the precordial electrocardiograms of normal persons, and there have appeared numerous reports 2 of abnormalities in the chest lead observed in the presence of various types of heart disease, particularly cardiac infarction. In addition, there have been some important investigations 3 of direct and indirect chest leads following experimentally induced cardiac infarction in animals. In a review of the literature it became evident that the studies dealing with human material, with a few exceptions, were in large part correlations between the precordial electrocardiogram and the condition of the heart as determined clinically . Thus we encountered only