Auricular Flutter With Block in Children

AURICULAR flutter with associated auriculoventricular block is one of the less common forms of paroxysmal tachycardia. In the medical literature of the past thirty years, only 10 reports of this condition in infants and children could be found. In the patient whom we observed the arrhythmia apparently developed shortly after birth, and he recovered spontaneously when he reached the age of 4 months. During this period only mild symptoms of circulatory failure were noted, and except for a slight trauma of the neck at birth no abnormality to explain the development of the condition could be detected. The course of the illness in this patient is described in detail, and the salient features of the disease in the patients previously reported on are discussed briefly. REPORT OF A CASE The patient was a white boy born March 8, 1945. The mother had had severe arthritis three years before this, her