The precordial T-wave amplitude decrease in diabetes mellitus (model study)

This work continues our previous study [1] on the relationship between the reduced apicobasal gradient of ventricular repolarization and the decrease of T -wave amplitude in the chest leads in rabbits with experimental diabetes mellitus. The possible reasons for T -wave flattening observed in diabetes mellitus were studied in the framework of a mathematical model based on the new experimental data. The simulations showed that the precordial T -waves of the same polarity but of the reduced amplitude observed in diabetes mellitus may be caused by the decrease of the total dispersion of repolarization (i.e. the time difference between the earliest and the latest end of repolarization in the heart ventricles) as well as by the changed repolarization sequence with the normal dispersion of repolarization. Thus, the T -wave changes are not indicative of the alternans in the repolarization process. At the same time, the magnitude and the direction of the resulting repolarization vector ( T -vector) reliably reflect the dispersion and the general sequence of ventricular repolarization.