ECG findings in young Nigerian medical students

Cardiovascular diseases are becoming more frequent occurrence in the third world. There are tell-tale signs that can be seen long before they occur. Thus forty volunteer medical students, comprising of 18 females and 22 males between the ages of 18 and 30 years, were assessed for cardiac fitness using ECG. All the volunteers were subjected to exercise stress test using bicycle ergometer. They exercised to exhaustion or attainment of 85%HR
max
. ECG was recorded pre and post-exercise. The study compares the findings in the males to that of the females. Results showed that pre-exercise in males, 60% had normal ECG, 8% had sinus bradycardia, 4% sinusarrhythmia and 8% left atrial enlargement. Other findings included 4% right atrial deviation, 4% short PR interval, 4% premature ventricular contraction, 4% rare premature atrial contraction and 4% had early repolarisation. Post-exercise ECG revealed 36% normal ECG, 44% had sinus tachycardia. In the females, pre-exercise findings revealed 94.4% normal ECG and 5.6% had sinus arrhythmia. Post-exercise findings showed66.7% normal ECG, 22.2% had sinus tachycardia, 5.6% sinus arrhythmia and 5.6% rare premature atrial contraction. Abnormal ECG findings are prevalent among young Nigerians and there is need to focus of this group to prevent cardiac events in the future.