![]() ![]() ![]() In the first year, Aidan was admitted to Children’s four more times for SVT. Because he grew so quickly, doctors needed to continually adjust his medications to keep him from experiencing more episodes. But his case proved to be more challenging than anyone had hoped or expected. Over the next few days, they worked to finalize the best combination of medications to control his SVT. Moak and his team decided to treat Aidan’s condition with medication until he grew older. Since catheters are designed primarily for use in adults, Dr. Once the origin of the issue is located, we send electrical impulses through the catheter to burn the tissue so it can no longer conduct electricity.” “To safely and accurately target the microscopic pathway – and minimize patients’ exposure to radiation from x-rays – we use a radiation-free, 3-D mapping technology that allows physicians to precisely guide catheters during ablations. During an ablation, an electrophysiologist inserts a catheter (flexible tube) into a blood vessel and threads it into the heart. The two primary ways to treat supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) are with medications that suppress the arrhythmia or with cardiac ablation, which uses targeted energy to destroy just the area of the heart causing the abnormal heartbeat. “It was a complete shock,” remembers Stephanie. The scary part for Aidan’s family was that he didn’t have any symptoms before diagnosis or in the years to follow. Typical symptoms for WPW include chest pain, dizziness, lightheadedness and pale or ashy skin. “It causes a form of reciprocating tachycardia involving the atria and ventricles, in other words a very rapid heartbeat.” “It’s sort of like a merry-go-ground,” says Dr. ![]() In WPW, there is an extra, microscopic string of tissue that connects the upper and lower parts of the heart, creating a complete circuit that allows electrical currents to spin faster and faster. Normally, electricity in the heart flows from the top chambers (atria) to the bottom chambers (ventricles) and is then extinguished, similar to a one-way road. Jeffrey Moak, M.D., Director of the Electrophysiology and Pacing Program within the Children’s National Heart Institute, diagnosed Aidan with a rare heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson White syndrome (WPW). He immediately sent them to Children’s National where doctors confirmed that Aidan’s tiny heart was beating twice as fast as it should be. “I knew something was wrong.”ĭuring his 1-month-old checkup at a local doctor’s office in California, Maryland, Aidan’s pediatrician detected a rapid heartbeat. Re-entrant supraventricular tachycardias.“Our pediatrician hovered over Aidan’s heart for way too long,” said Stephanie Mohun-Hintze, Aidan’s mom. The rapidity of the aberrant conduction pathway causes the PR interval to be shorter than normal.Ībout 50% of people with the ECG characteristics of WPW syndrome will experience The abnormal wave of ventricular depolarisation results in a delta wave which appears as a slur to the upstroke of the otherwise normal QRS complex. Often the QRS complex is normal during tachycardic episodes because the re-entry loop involves anterograde conduction along the AVN-His system and retrograde conduction along the bundle of Kent. Such aberrant tissue rapidly conducts atrial depolarisations directly to the ventricular myocardium, so bypassing the slower AVN and the bundle of His. The phenomenon of ventricular pre-excitation results from abnormal atrio-ventricular conduction along a pathway termed the bundle of Kent. ECG signs of ventricular pre-excitation in between attacks.The Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is characterised by: ![]()
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