Arrhythmias during intracardiac catheterization.

T HE PATIENT who undergoes cardiac catheterization may develop an arrhythmia. It would be useful to know who is most susceptible, how hazardous the arrhythmia may be and what can be done about it. Cournand' mentioned premature contractions and runs of ventricular tachycardia as the most important complication in the procedure. Two cases were quoted in which death may have been the result of ectopic rhythms. Dexter2 reported irregularities of the heart in 27 out of 42 cases; 14 had symptoms referable to the arrhythmia. Bloomfield3 noticed many ventricular premature systoles, while Levine4 described seven cases with disorder of the heart beat of auricular origin with the tip of the intracardiac electrode in the right auricle. He found that a high percentage of subjects developed arrhythmias when the tip was in the right ventricle. Most reports infer that the great majority of irregularities are of ventricular origin, induced when the catheter, especially its tip, is in the vicinity of the interventricular septum. The present study details the type and incidence of disorders in the cardiac mechanism noted in a consecutive series of cardiac catheterizations performed during a one-year period. The influence of age, sex, diagnosis, pulse rate and blood pressure has been analyzed. METHODS AND MATERIALS