Auricular Flutter and Congenital Heart Disease

AURICULAR fibrillation is not extremely uncommon in children,¹but auricular flutter in childhood has been reported in only a few cases. Most of these flutters have developed after diphtheria²and have usually been paroxysmal.³Even less commonly the condition has been associated with congenital heart disease and has been present for weeks or even years. We believe our case represents one of the latter group and we have been able to find only a few similar cases in the English literature. Lewis⁴in 1915 reported the first case of auricular flutter in an infant. The flutter was paroxysmal, and the details of the case were not given. Included in the series of children with paroxysmal tachycardia reported by Koplik⁵in 1917 was a boy who had auricular flutter. This 10 year old child was observed for more than two years, and during this time he