Twelve-lead electrocardiographic analysis and pharmacotherapy in centenarians

Summary The prevalence of electrocardiographic anomalies has been assessed in a selected group of centenarians recruited in Western Sicily (49 subjects, 15 males and 34 females) with an average age of 101.5 years (range 100–109); the findings were analyzed in correlation with the state of health of the subjects, the drugs used and the presence of specific heart diseases and immobility. These subjects have rare signs of heart diseases, they do not show any electrolytic disorder, in spite of using many drugs sometimes in an inconsistent way. Particularly interesting is to note the moderate prevalence of sinus rhythm and the extremely low number of subjects with sinus respiratory arrhythmia as compared to the known literary data for the over-sixties. There occur, however, frequent, but almost asymptomatic troubles of the intraventricular conduction, especially left anterior hemiblock and ectopic beats. Atrial fibrillation and bradyarrhythmias are rare, while left axis deviation with scarce signs of left ventricular hypertrophy and alterations of the repolarization phase are frequent. The most used drugs are digitalis and vasodilators, especially angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. The observed data prove that heart functions of the centenarians are in good conditions; the alterations of them are less serious than those of the somewhat younger old age classes, where the electrocardiographic anomalies are of higher extent and severity.