Atrioventricular block and problems with atrioventricular conduction

This chapter has summarized briefly the current state of our knowledge on the incidence, etiology, presentation, investigation, and management of patients with AV block. The scope of the material covered has been widened intentionally to include a plethora of AV-conduction abnormalities because of the increases in the understanding of their clinical importance and contribution to left ventricular dysfunction. Under this heading, the critical importance of heart rate, maintenance of AV synchrony, and the sequence of ventricular activation and relaxation have been introduced and summarized briefly. The authors make a strong plea that, in the future, the reader consider AV-conduction abnormalities to be the parent topic, with the more-traditional, narrower subject of AV block forming a subunit thereof.