Isaac Kofi Owusu, Yaw Adu-Boakye and Lambert Tetteh Appiah
The resting 12-lead Electrocardiogram (ECG) is very useful in the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of heart failure. There are limited data on the prevalence of ECG abnormalities in heart failure in Ghana. This retrospective study was therefore designed to determine the prevalence of ECG abnormalities among heart failure patients attending a cardiac clinic at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi, Ghana. Medical records of 398 patients diagnosed with heart failure were selected from the cardiac clinic, using simple random sampling. The demographic, clinical and chest X-ray characteristics of the patients were examined. The 12-lead resting ECGs were obtained from 394 of the patients. The ECGs were abnormal in 93% (n=367) of the patients. The main ECG abnormalities included: left ventricular hypertrophy (43.7%), left axis deviation (39.6%), left bundle branch block (19.2%), and left atrial enlargement (25.6%). Arrhythmias seen included: ventricular extrasystoles (11.2%), atrial fibrillation (8.9%), complete heart block (5.3%), and ventricular tachycardia (3.6%).
In conclusion, our study has shown that ECG abnormalities are very common among heart failure patients attending cardiac clinic in Kumasi, Ghana
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