Re-entry near the site of the ventricular parasystolic focus: An ECG study of patients with artificial ventricular pacemakers

Borys Surawicz, Chien Suu Kuo, C. Pratap Reddy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Morphology of ventricular ectopic complexes was examined in 1,746 ECGs of 149 patients with permanent ventricular pacemakers. In 20 of 80 patients (25%) the morphology of ventricular ectopic complexes was similar to that of the paced complex. This resulted in a ventricular couplet where the spontaneous premature complex originated at the site of pacing, possibly due to local re-entry. Repeated re-entry (two ventricular ectopic complexes in a row) occurred only in one of these patients, and none had ventricular tachycardia. These observations 1) verify the existence of a mechanism which we have postulated in explaining the association between couplets and ventricular parasystole, and 2) confirm the rare occurrence of repeated reentry in such a setting. Other observations in this study show that premature stimulation during right ventricular pacing may alter morphology of the ventricular complex from a left to right bundle branch block pattern in some leads.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)103-107
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Electrocardiology
Volume13
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1980

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine

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