This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Anthony L. Sintetos, MD, PhD; Steven F. Roark, MD; Mark S. Smith, MD; Elizabeth A. McCarthy, RN; Kerry L. Lee, PhD; Edward L. C. Pritchett, MD

Arch Intern Med. 1986;146(11):2205-2209.

Abstract
• The purpose of this article is to investigate the occurrence of symptomatic paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT) in untreated patients and to assess factors that influenced its occurrence. We studied 34 patients with this arrhythmia during an observation period in which they received no antiarrhythmic drug therapy for up to 90 days. Recurrence of PSVT was documented by telephone transmission of the electrocardiogram. Each patient was allowed to have exactly one episode of tachycardia before being removed from the study. We measured how long patients remained free of their tachycardia (the tachycardia-free period) and heart rate during tachycardia. Twenty-nine of the 34 patients had an attack of symptomatic tachycardia within the 90-day observation period. The proportion of patients who had not had any symptomatic PSVT by each day of follow-up was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method as follows: 75% by day 3, 50% by day 19, 25% by day 36, and 17% by day 90. Patients with any other heart or lung disease had significantly shorter tachycardia-free periods. The mean heart rate during spontaneous tachycardia was 203.5 ± 34.9 beats per minute (range, 142 to 288 beats per minute). Patients with longer tachycardiafree periods had significantly faster heart rates during tachycardia.

(Arch Intern Med 1986;146:2205-2209)

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology (Drs Sintetos, Roark, McCarthy, and Pritchett), and from the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Division of Biometry (Dr Lee), Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. Dr Smith is now with the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication March 26, 1986.

Reprints not available.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Clinical and electrophysiological characteristics in patients with atrioventricular reentrant and atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia
Bottoni et al.
Europace 2003;5:225-229.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Unrecognized Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia: Potential for Misdiagnosis as Panic Disorder
Lessmeier et al.
Arch Intern Med 1997;157:537-543.
ABSTRACT