Electrocardiogram for Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Diseases: History
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a global public health problem. It is a disease of multifactorial origin, and with this characteristic, having an accurate diagnosis of its incidence is a problem that health personnel face every day. Time is an essential factor when identifying heart problems, specialists look for and develop options to improve this aspect, which requires a thorough analysis of the patient, electrocardiograms being the factor standard for diagnosis and monitoring of patients.

  • cardiovascular disease
  • electrocardiogram
  • diagnosis cardiovascular disease
  • CVD

1. Introduction

Cardiovascular diseases consist of a group of pathologies that in some way affect the normal functioning of the heart. Acute myocardial infarction is a complication of these, and consists of the lack of oxygenation of a part of the cardiac tissue, generating areas of necrosis, which prevents the propagation of the electrical impulse, which leads to an alteration of the rhythm and, sometimes, causes it to come to a halt completely [1]. This pathology is of multifactorial origin and can appear in the different stages of a human being, which makes its treatment difficult in a specific way. The WHO and the Pan American Health Organization have highlighted them as the main cause of premature death worldwide, considering them a red light of attention because they have not been able to reduce the number of cases, on the contrary, they have increased in recent years [2,3].
Risk factors for CVD are smoking, cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, and obesity [4,5]. In a report published by the AHA in 2011, it is mentioned that 40.6% of cardiovascular diseases were due to high blood pressure, 11.9% to a sedentary lifestyle, 13.2% to a poorly balanced diet, 13.7% to smoking, and 88% to poorly controlled diabetes mellitus [6]. In these studies, it was established that it is possible to directly control blood pressure, total cholesterol, and smoking, which will lead to a significant reduction in cardiovascular risk. While for the control of obesity and diabetes mellitus, more time will be required to find formulas that serve to reduce their impact on society. A point to note is that CVD was considered a disease that affected mostly men, but over the years it has been shown that this is not entirely true, since there are underlying pathologies, such as diabetes and smoking, that cause more CVD problems in women [7,8].
The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the heart electrical activity record; this is considered as the “gold standard”. The importance of its study and use lies in its low cost, it is a non-invasive method and it provides information about the patient. It even allows the identification of different cardiac pathologies based on the morphology of the signal [9,10,11].
There are currently two global public health problems that, although they are not part of the risk factors, have been seen to directly affect the development of CVD. One of them is environmental pollution, not only because of its impact on the environment, presenting itself as part of global warming, but as an entity that in itself causes millions of premature deaths around the world. It has been found to be associated with 60% to 80% of CVD deaths [12]. It is made up of two main composition groups: particles of different sizes and gaseous components. The particles vary in their constitution and size, depending on the emitting source; generally, they are mainly organic elements. With regard to gasses, these are more specific, since they are variations of ozone, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. These gasses react with each other and with particles in the same environment, causing the appearance of more harmful compounds [12,13]. There are studies that have observed that having a concentration of PM 2.5 at a value of 10 mg/m3, increases the arterial pressure of the exposed individual by 3 mmHg in a state of rest, simply by breathing these pollutants. Therefore, when exposed to constant concentrations, the individual with normal blood pressure over time can develop arterial hypertension, which is a risk factor for the appearance of CVD [14].
A new cause of CVD that is very relevant nowadays is called COVID-19. This cause of CVD begins with respiratory symptoms, but in its natural evolution triggers a generalized systemic inflammation in the host. Although initially identified as a totally respiratory disease, the inflammation affects countless organs and systems, producing a series of damages and sequelae with which surviving patients will have to live [15].

2. Electrocardiogram for Diagnosis of Cardiovascular Diseases 

Please describe some progress or principles in this field here (more than 400 words).

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/a15030082

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