BACKGROUND Catheter ablation with the use of radiofrequency current has been introduced as a therapeutic option for patients with tachyarrhythmias mediated by an accessory atrioventricular pathway. The technique conventionally implies the introduction of several catheters into the heart for assessment of electrophysiological parameters as well as for localization of the accessory pathway and ma...

Introduction During orthodromic atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (AVRT), ventricles are activated anterogradely through the atrioventricular node and retrogradely through an accessory pathway (AP). Antiarrhythmic drugs are initially used to prevent recurrences of AVRT, whereas catheter ablation is frequently performed as a definitive treatment. Occasionally, catheter ablation can be “proa...

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (WPW) is the most common indication for invasive cardiac catheterization and electrophysiological testing in children. There are presently 2 predominant reasons for this. First, patients with WPW are, as the original 1930 investigators so eloquently pointed out, at risk for “paroxysmal tachycardia.”1 Supraventricular tachycardia is typically either orthodromic or,...

carpal tunnel syndrome is known as an industrial new epidemic. in many of jobs, the same motions of hand are repeated thousands of times a day.  each day the number of people with the syndrome is increasing. clerks, workers in food preparation and packaging, and secretaries of large supermarkets have a high risk for suffering from this syndrome. in fact, all people who flex and extend their wri...

Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty using balloon catheters for Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have become increasingly accepted as alternative therapeutic modalities. However, few studies have investigated the clinical efficacy of combining percutaneous microwave ablation with angioplasty for pati...

OBJECTIVES To explore racial differences in characteristics, procedural treatments, and mortality of hospitalized atrial fibrillation (AF) patients. BACKGROUND Despite a higher burden of AF risk factors, Black individuals have a lower prevalence of AF than their White counterparts. There is suggestion that AF may go undetected in minority groups, and there may be disparities in both diagnosis...

Patients with Brugada syndrome are at risk of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. Epicardial substrate ablation for Brugada syndrome has been described as a means of controlling these arrhythmias and recent reports describe elimination of the Brugada phenotype with ablation. We describe a unique case in which a patient developed inferior J waves with an early repolarization-type electroca...

Background. Radiofrequency energy has been used safely and successfully to eliminate accessory pathways in patients with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome and the substrate for atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia. However, this form of ablation has had only limited success in eliminating ventricular tachycardia in patients with structural heart disease. In contrast, direct-current cat...

A 27-year-old man presented with decreased vision bilaterally. Ophthalmologic examination revealed panuveitis with bilateral serous retinal detachments (figure 1) characteristic of Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) syndrome. Analysis of CSF revealed mild pleocytosis. No oligoclonal bands were detected. On MRI, there was bilateral abnormal thickening of the choroid with retinal detachment (figure 2, A ...

trial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in clinical practice and is associated with increased risk for mortality and stroke. The prevalence of AF is high and drastically increases with age. Therefore, a downstream therapeutic approach using antiarrhythmic drugs (AADs) is insufficient, and considerable attention has been devoted to clarifying the potential role of an approach which...