Why the study?
Electric shocks commonly impact the heart, causing potentially fatal conditions or sinus bradycardia, but guidelines regarding patient supervision after electrical injury differ.
Does 24-hour cardiac monitoring help determine the need for a pacemaker in a patient with symptomatic sinus bradycardia following a low-voltage electrical injury?
Does 24-hour cardiac monitoring help determine the need for a pacemaker in a patient with symptomatic sinus bradycardia following a low-voltage electrical injury?
Symptomatic sinus bradycardia following low-voltage electrical injury can be transient and reversible, suggesting that 24-hour cardiac monitoring is appropriate before considering a pacemaker.
Electrical injury may cause sinus bradycardia with syncope; this case leaves open optimal monitoring duration.
Electric shocks pose a serious threat to public health. The heart is among the organs that are most commonly impacted. Electrical harm can cause a number of potentially fatal heart conditions, including asystole, ventricular fibrillation, and myocardial rupture. Some patients had sinus bradycardia diagnosed at the time of admission. In this case report, we describe a 43-year-old male patient who had an electrical injury that resulted in syncope and sinus bradycardia. After 24 hours of cardiac monitoring, the patient was found to not require a pacemaker. This suggests that patients with symptomatic sinus bradycardia should have cardiac monitoring. If, after 24 hours, cardiac monitoring revealed no new episodes of sinus bradycardia and the patient remained asymptomatic, the patient is unlikely to require a pacemaker. There are differing guidelines and suggestions regarding the supervision of patients following electrical damage, and further study in this area is necessary to enable the unification of guidelines.
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Luai Alhazmi (2023) studied this question.
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