Terremoto 2010: Impacto en la incidencia de lesiones subepicárdicas. experiencia en telemedicina

background: the association of stress and acute coronary events has been extensively explored. an increased output of catecholamines leading to high blood pressure and alteration of hemostasis may be responsible for this effect. a severe earthquake and tsunami is a major stress. methods and results. 280,592 electrocardiograms (ecg) obtained via a telemedicine system in the years 2009 and 2010 were analyzed. the frequency of subepicardial lesions recorded during the weekend in which the earthquake took place (27/2/2010 - 28/2/2010) was compared to that observed in all other weekends throughout the period. 7 subjects had a blood pressure holter monitoring on that weekend. a subepicardial lesion was diagnosed in 0.64% of ecgs recorded throughout the period, increasing significantly in the earthquake's weekend (p<0.05). the age distribution of subepicardial lesions was similar in all weekends. however, the higher proportion of males with sub epicardial lesions throughout the study period changed to a higher proportion of females in the earthquake's weekend. significant increases in blood pressure and heart rate were observed in coincidence with the earthquake in patients undergoing blood pressure monitoring. conclusion: a statistically significant increase in subepicardial lesions demonstrated by telemedicine ecg recordings was associated to the stressful situation of the 2010 earthquake in chile.