Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is the most common form of wide complex tachycardia and is associated with a high mortality rate. Electrocardiographic analysis remains paramount in diagnosis and helps to direct therapy. Antiarrhythmic agents, although effective in reducing arrhythmia burden, have never demonstrated a mortality benefit. The implantable cardioverter-defibrillator aids not only in th...

Disorders of cardiac rate and rhythm represent major causes of mortality and morbidity in developed countries. Sudden cardiac death, defined as death within 1 hour of an unexpected change in cardiovascular status, kills more than 300,000 people each year in the United States (29), whereas nonlethal arrhythmias account for much additional disability. Atrial fibrillation, a leading cause of cereb...

Cardiac arrhythmias are disturbances in the rhythm of the heart, manifested by irregularity or by abnormally fast rates (tachycardias) or abnormally slow rates (bradycardias). Patients who perceive these abnormalities most frequently observe palpitations,which somedescribe as the sensation of ‘my heart turning over in my chest’, or awareness that their hearts are beating rapidly or slowly. Othe...

It is well known that new-onset arrhythmias are common in septic patients. It is thought that hypophosphatemia in the early stages of sepsis may contribute to the development of new arrhythmias. In this study, we hypothesized that intravenous (IV) phosphorus replacement may reduce the incidence of arrhythmias in critically ill patients. 34 adult septic patients with hypophosphatemia admitted to...

We investigated the effects of prolonged repolarization induced by slowed inactivation of Na+ channel on adrenaline-induced arrhythmias in halothane anesthetized, closed-chest dogs. We used sea anemone toxins (ATX-II and Anthopleurin-A) to prolong ventricular repolarization and examined their effects on adrenaline arrhythmias. Sea anemone toxins prolonged the QTc- and JTc-intervals (P<0.01), bu...

The association between the extent of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and severity of ventricular or atrial arrhythmias are examined. Two-dimensional echocardiography and 24-h Holter electrocardiography monitoring were performed in 60 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). According to the distribution of the LV hypertrophy, the patients were divided into three groups: 1. Apical hyp...

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is the adaptative mechanism of the heart to systolic overload of the left ventricle. Nevertheless, LVH plays a role in some complications, such as cardiac arrhythmias. Patients with LVH are more likely to develop ventricular arrhythmias than the hypertensive population without LVH. Further, the relation between left ventricular mass and ventricular arrhythmias...

We investigated the frequency of cardiac arrhythmias in patients suspected of having sleep apnea, and related them to the severity of apnea, snoring, and nocturnal hypoxemia. We prospectively studied 458 patients who had nocturnal polysomnography which included objective measurement of snoring (quantified by the number of snores per hour of sleep [snoring index (SI)] and maximum nocturnal sound...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The influence of coronary artery revascularization on the control of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with chronic myocardial infarction is uncertain. However, ablation of the arrhythmogenic circuit in these patients by aneurysm resection is useful for controlling ventricular arrhythmias. We made a prospective analysis of our clinical strategy in patients who were...