Undiagnosed wide QRS tachycardias should be managed with consideration of underlying WPW syndrome to avoid potentially catastrophic events.
A 10-year-old girl presented to the emergency department of a regional hospital with 1 episode of generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Postictal monitoring followed by a 12-lead electrocardiogram showed fast atrial fibrillation with intermittent wide QRS regular tachycardia. Immediately following this, her rhythm changed to wide QRS irregular tachycardia without hemodynamic compromise. She was suspected to have ventricular tachycardia and was treated with intravenous amiodarone with cardioversion to sinus rhythm. Subsequent electrocardiogram in sinus rhythm showed typical features of manifest Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) accessory pathway. This case illustrates the diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas in patients with atrial fibrillation, wide QRS tachycardia, and undiagnosed WPW syndrome with antidromic conduction of atrial arrhythmias through the accessory pathway. Furthermore, this case demonstrates that undiagnosed wide QRS tachycardias need to be treated with drugs acting on the accessory pathway, thus keeping in mind underlying WPW syndrome as a possibility to avoid potentially catastrophic events.
Panduranga et al. (Thu,) studied this question.