From the Research Unit of Internal Medicine, Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital, University of Oulu, Finland (T.V.K., J.T.T., M.J.J., H.V.H.); Department of Medicine I, University Hospital Munich, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Germany (M.F.S., R.F., K.S., S.K.); German Cardiovascular Research Centre, Partner Site: Munich Heart Alliance (M.F.S., M.M.-N., A.P., S.K.); Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (B.D.N., R.L.V.); Institute of Genetic Epidemiology (R.F., M.M.-N., K.S.) and Institute of Epidemiology II (A.P.), Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg; Division of Cardiology, Heart and Lung Center, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Finland (K.P., M.V., A.J., M.S.N., L.O.); Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA (J.T.T.); and National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland (V.S.). tuomas.kentta@oulu.fi.
We developed a novel electrocardiographic marker, T-wave area dispersion (TW-Ad), which measures repolarization heterogeneity by assessing interlead T-wave areas during a single cardiac cycle and tested whether it can identify patients at risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD) in the general population.
TW-Ad was measured from standard digital 12-lead ECG in 5618 adults (46% men; age, 50.9±12.5 years) participating in the Health 2000 Study-an epidemiological survey representative of the Finnish adult population. Independent replication was performed in 3831 participants of the KORA S4 Study (Cooperative Health Research in the Region of Augsburg; 49% men; age, 48.7±13.7 years; mean follow-up, 8.8±1.1 years). During follow-up (7.7±1.4 years), 72 SCDs occurred in the Health 2000 Survey. Lower TW-Ad was univariately associated with SCD (0.32±0.36 versus 0.60±0.19; P