Found Different EKG Results On Different Machine. Is This The Cause For Concern?

Posted on Mon, 22 Apr 2013

Question: Yes I took an ekg at my dr office.. its said abnormal. . Anterior farct.. then an hour later I took 2 at my cardiologist office .. he took it to compare with the abnormal one from the other dr office. He said they were both normal in his machine. .. I. Also did one 3 months ago in my cardiologist office a nd said normal as well... in all the years they were always normal... I get it done every 6 months.... could it be machine.. my cardiologist says yes...

Answered by Dr. Prasad Akole (2 hours later)

Dear friend, welcome and thanks for entrusting your query here at Healthcaremagic!
I am Dr. Prasad Akole (Critical Care Expert- http://bit.ly/Dr-Prasad-Akole) and am glad to address to your query here.

EKGs on different machines may look different.

Though there is usually a standardization wave in each machine EKG, the kind of technology in machines may differ and sometimes may confer little contour change in the waves appearing as infarct pattern.

Also we never rely on automated machine interpretations as they are dumb
machine readings from electronic data.

I do not know if his was an electronic machine (like laptop based machine) or the older thermal machine.

There could be contour differences between machines, and if your cardiologist reports manually as normal, you can rely on him.

I hope it takes away your doubt.

I would be glad to answer any further queries. Please ask for any clarifications before closing and rating this query.
Take care and please keep me informed of your progress at http://bit.ly/Dr-Prasad-Akole
Good Luck! Thank you!!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar