Key factors in the identification of the high-risk patient with unstable coronary artery disease: Clinical findings, resting 12-lead electrocardiogram, and continuous electrocardiographic monitoring

This article reviews a range of methods for identifying high-risk patients with unstable coronary artery disease, including clinical evaluation, the resting 12-lead electro-cardiogram, continuous vectorcardiography, and a combined risk evaluation using continuous vectorcardiography and measurement of troponin-T. Clinical evaluation is not very accurate for identifying high-risk patients and modern techniques have not been fully validated in clinical trials, The combination of continuous vectorcardiography and biochemical monitoring is a very powerful method of identifying both very high-and very low-risk patients and may be increasingly used in the future, (C) 1997 by Excerpta Medica, Inc.