Paroxysmal Tachycardia in Children

It has been suggested that paroxysmal tachycardia in children is more frequent than a search of the literature would indicate. Many adults with this cardiac arrhythmia have stated that the condition dated from childhood.1Cases in children have probably been overlooked because of the mildness of symptoms. Taran and Jennings2in a review of the literature from 1892 to 1935 found only 52 cases occurring between the ages of 9 days and 15 years. A few of their observations are cited here. 1. Measles and pertussis seem important as causative factors. However, as Shookhoff, Litvak and Matusoff1have pointed out, a history of pertussis, though worth noting, may be purely coincidental. 2. Tachycardia is more often auricular than nodal or ventricular, there being in only 3 of the 52 cases a definite diagnosis of the atrioventricular-nodal type. 3. The prognosis seems to depend more on the causative