Hyperkinetic ventricular arrhythmias in very elderly people with and without cardiac disease. Correlation with left ventricular echocardiographic parameters.

Background: Morphological and functional changes induced by aging can hamper a clear distinction between pathological or paraphysiological phenomena in very old people. The incidence of hyperkinetic ventricular arrhythmias, for example, progressively increases in the elderly, even in the absence of overt cardiac disease.

Methods: One-hundred fifty-two clinically stable patients older than 80 years, submitted within 15 days to clinical evaluation, 24-hour continuous ambulatory ECG monitoring and echo Doppler examination, in the absence of antiarrhythmic treatment, were retrospectively selected in order to evaluate the incidence of ventricular arrhythmias, in patients with and without significant heart disease. The further aim of the study was to correlate the number of arrhythmias with left ventricular morphological and functional parameters, echocardiographically assessed. From the initial population, 80 patients (41 males, age 83 +/- 3 years) had significant heart disease (ischemic, hypertensive or valvular): Group I. Seventy-two patients (30 males, age 83 +/- 3 years) had no clinical or instrumental signs of heart disease: Group II.

Results: Considering echocardiographic data, Group I patients had a significantly higher left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (52 +/- 6 mm vs 47 +/- 4 mm, p < 0.01), lower ejection fraction (57 +/- 10% vs 64 +/- 6%, p < 0.01) and higher mass (275 +/- 84 g vs 208 +/- 46 g, p < 0.01), when compared with Group II. From ECG monitoring data, significant differences between the two groups were recorded in the incidence of premature ventricular beats per hour (79 +/- 163 vs 15 +/- 34, Group I vs Group II, p < 0.01) and presence of complex phenomena (couplets, triplets and runs: 51% vs 22%, p < 0.01). In old patients with documented cardiac disease a significant correlation was present between premature ventricular beats incidence and left ventricular end diastolic diameter (r = 0.39, p < 0.05) and left ventricular ejection fraction (r = 0.40, p < 0.05), while in patients without heart disease, no significant correlation was found between incidence of premature ventricular beats and echocardiographic morpho-functional parameters.

Conclusions: In conclusion, hyperkinetic ventricular arrhythmias are globally frequent in old persons of very advanced age (more than 80 years), but, also in this subset, a significant distinction in terms of incidence and severity of arrhythmias is present between subjects with and without cardiac disease. A significant correlation between incidence of premature beats and non-invasive morpho-functional left ventricular parameters is present only for patients with overt heart disease.