Assessment of ventricular late potentials in HIV positive patients based on the RR interval histogram

Ventricular late potentials (VLP) are fragmented electrical activities, originating from regions with delayed conduction in the damaged myocardium, and markers of ventricular arrhythmia due to reentry. Individuals infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) present an elevated risk of sudden death, from a mechanism not yet fully understood. The high prevalence of VLP in the signal-averaged ECG of these patients reinforces a possible arrhythmic mechanism and may be of prognostic significance. This paper investigates the prevalence of VLP in 34 HIV positive patients, CDC classes II and IV during ambulatory evaluation. The results demonstrate that VLP are highly correlated with the instantaneous heart rate, specially in patients with clinical manifestation of immunodeficiency and suggests that heart rate variability may influence variations in VLP duration.