Original ArticlesThe Prevalence and Prognosis of a Brugada-type Electrocardiogram in a Population of Middle-aged Japanese-American Men with Follow-up of Three Decades
Section snippets
Methods
The Honolulu Heart Program is a prospective cohort study of coronary heart disease and stroke among Japanese-American men born between 1900 and 1919 who were living on Oahu, Hawaii in 1965. A total of 8006 men aged 45 to 68 years participated in the initial examination carried out from 1965 to 1968. Details of the procedures of recruiting cohort and the initial examination have been reported elsewhere.12., 13. Continuous surveillance of cardiovascular and cancer morbidity and all mortality
Prevalence
After reviewing 864 ECGs coded as RBBB from patients without history or clinical evidence of coronary heart disease, 12 cases with typical B-ECG and 11 cases with atypical B-ECG were identified. The prevalence rates of typical and atypical B-ECG in our study population was 0.15% and 0.14%, respectively. The prevalence rates by 5-year age group did not show a significant trend, although it was lowest in the oldest age group (Table 1).
Baseline Characteristics
Baseline characteristics are shown in Table 2. Although body
Discussion
Our population study showed a low prevalence rate and excellent prognosis in subjects with B-ECG. Although our study population is limited to older Japanese-American men, this is the first population-based study of B-ECG in the United States.
Conclusion
Our study suggests that middle-aged or elderly Japanese American males with B-ECG found incidentally did not have increased risk of either sudden death or total mortality. Our study further suggests that this ECG pattern is uncommonly observed in middle-aged or elderly community-dwelling men at routine or screening examinations. These results are consistent with the previously reported data by Japanese population-based studies.10., 11. Thus, primary prophylactic use of an automatic implantable
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Sources of support: the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contract N01-HC-05102 and grant U01HL-56274