This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Correction  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

William C. Reeves, MD

Arch Intern Med. 1983;143(11):2155-2156.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In 1978, an ECG task force reported that the detection of right atrial enlargement should be based on the presence of an increase in P wave amplitude in the limb leads, in association with a peaked P wave morphology, and rightward frontal plane P wave axis.¹ This pattern is known as P pulmonale (Fig 1, upper trace). This suggestion has some support in two autopsy studies. Berliner and Master,² in 1938, reported that subjects with isolated left atrial hypertrophy had normal P wave amplitude, while those with biatrial hypertrophy had an increase in P wave amplitude, although in four cases of isolated right atrial hypertrophy, no P wave abnormalities were noted. In 1962, Caird and Wilken³ found right atrial abnormalities in patients with obstructive lung disease. The P pulmonale ECG pattern was noted in seven of the 11 patients with a dilated right atrium, three patients with . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Cardiology Division, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, Hershey. Dr Reeves is now with Mount Sinai Hospital, Milwaukee.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication March 30, 1983.

Reprint requests to the Cardiovascular Disease Section, Mount Sinai Hospital, 950 N 12th St, Milwaukee, WI 53233 (Dr Reeves).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?