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To the Editor: An inferolateral early repolarization (ER) electrocardiographic (ECG) pattern has been associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death (1–4). A strong male predominance in the prevalence of an ER ECG pattern has been observed, with a higher prevalence in young men (5). The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that testosterone level is associated with an ER ECG pattern.

We analyzed electrocardiograms from 6,306 subjects in the Health 2000 study. The mean age of the study subjects was 53 Æ 15 years. We excluded all subjects with bundle branch blocks from the analysis (n ¼ 144). We also excluded all females (n ¼ 3,407) due to the expected low testosterone levels. We included 2,755 men in our study.