In electrocardiography, a strain pattern is a well-recognized marker for the presence of anatomic

left ventricular hypertrophy Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is thickening of the heart muscle of the left ventricle of the heart, that is, left-sided ventricular hypertrophy and resulting increased left ventricular mass. Causes While ventricular hypertrophy occurs ...

(LVH) in the form of

ST depression ST depression refers to a finding on an electrocardiogram, wherein the trace in the ST segment is abnormally low below the baseline. Causes It is often a sign of myocardial ischemia, of which coronary insufficiency is a major cause. Other isch ...

and

T wave In electrocardiography, the T wave represents the repolarization of the ventricles. The interval from the beginning of the QRS complex to the apex of the T wave is referred to as the ''absolute refractory period''. The last half of the T wave ...

inversion on a resting ECG.Okin, PM Devereux, RB, Nieminen, MS et al (2001)
“Relationship of the electrocardiographic strain pattern to left ventricular structure and function in hypertensive patients: the LIFE study”
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Journal of the American College of Cardiology The ''Journal of the American College of Cardiology'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of cardiovascular disease, including original clinical studies, translational investigations with clear clinical relevance, state-of-the-a ...

'';38(2):514-520. doi:10.1016/S0735-1097(01)01378-X It is an abnormality of

repolarization In neuroscience, repolarization refers to the change in membrane potential that returns it to a negative value just after the depolarization phase of an action potential which has changed the membrane potential to a positive value. The repolarizat ...

and it has been associated with an adverse prognosis in a variety heart disease patients. It has been important in refining the role of ECG LVH criteria in cardiac risk stratification. It is thought that a strain pattern could also reflect underlying

coronary heart disease Coronary artery disease (CAD), also called coronary heart disease (CHD), ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial ischemia, or simply heart disease, involves the reduction of blood flow to the heart muscle due to build-up of atherosclerotic pl ...

References

Heart diseases {{circulatory-disease-stub