Congenital atrial flutter.

Atrial flutter in infants is rare (Keith, Rowe, and Vlad, 1967) and was first reported by Lewis (1915) in an infant of 3 months. Carr and McClure (1931) reported atrial flutter in a newborn infant in whom the cardiac irregularity was noted occasionally before birth and in whom the heart rate and rhythm returned to normal on the 10th day after birth. Fetal tachycardia in such a case can lead to an erroneous prenatal diagnosis of fetal distress, and Blumenthal et al. (1968) have clarified the issue by documentation of the true nature of the lesion using fetal electrocardiography. The paucity of published reports suggests that this is an exceedingly rare condition and therefore worth while reporting 2 additional cases.