In an effort to enlarge the clinical application of body surface potential maps (BSPMs), the authors studied the relationship between abnormal ventricular wall motion and BSPMs in 98 consecutive patients with angiographically proven coronary artery disease (CAD). Forty-nine of the patients (50%) had wall motion abnormalities as seen on single-plane left cine ventriculograms. During early ventricular depolarization, normal BSPMs have a potential maximum that is greater than the absolute value of the potential minimum; this reverses in late depolarization such that the absolute value of the potential minimum is the greater. The patients showed a significantly early reversal (p less than 0.001), and 55 (56.1%) had abnormal "early reversal" BSPMs. This abnormal "early reversal" is closely related to abnormal ventricular wall motion. Using it as an indicator of abnormal wall motion, the authors obtained the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the following conditions: LAD lesions, LCX, RCA, LAD and RCA lesions, LAD and LCX, and three-vessel disease, and for all patients. A relatively high sensitivity (85%) and specificity (80%) was found in patients with LAD lesions only or multivessel lesions in addition to LAD lesions.