Association of a Wolff-Pakinson-White pattern alongside a long qt pattern on the same electrocardiogram record

Enviado por Francisco R. Breijo-Márquez

Resúmen

Both cardiological entities were described since long time ago, but independently one of other one. To do a detailed study of each one of them would be to write on something already well-known. Therefore, only we will do a shallow description of the same ones.

The WPW's syndrome was described by John Parkinson, Paul Dudley White y Louis Wolff, 79 years ago (1, 2). It is a congenital syndrome with a premature ventricular depolarization (ventricular pre-excitation across an accessory route). Its fundamental characteristics in ECG are: short PR-interval. Delta-wave. A wide QRS-complex (greater than 120 ms) and, sometimes, alterations in ventricular repolarization. It is, then, a syndrome of pre-excitation of the cardiac ventricles due to presence of an accessory route known as Kent's bundle. This pathway has an abnormal electrical transmission between the cardiac auricle and the ventricle (3, 4). Its incidence ranges between 0, 1 % and 3 % of the general population.

Notwithstanding that, the immense majority of individuals with WPW's syndrome remain asymptomatic along all your life; there is a risk of sudden cardiac death associated with this syndrome. This event is slightly frequent (less than 0,6 %), and this one is produced by the appearance of serious tachyarritmias that this anomalous route is capable of producing ( in some cases, the presence of this anomalous route can unleash ventricular fibrillation, one of the principal reasons of cardiac sudden death) (5,6,7,8)

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Enviado por Francisco R. Breijo-Márquez