Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 26, 2026

Estimating Bilateral Atrial Function by Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Feature Tracking in Patients with Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation
Published on: July 20, 2022
Is this atrial fibrillation?
Amir S Jadidi1, Henri Sunthorn, Haran Burri
1University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Amir.S.Jadidi@hcuge.ch
Abstract:
A 19-year-old girl was referred to our cardiology department for catheter ablation (isolation of the pulmonary veins) of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF). The diagnosis was made upon a 12-lead ECG of the arrhythmia documented in the emergency room. The ECG showed an irregular tachycardia without wide QRS complexes. Careful assessment revealed the irregularity of the rhythm was a sweep artifact due to a mechanic failure of the ECG-machine to advance the article smoothly. During EP study a concealed anteroseptal accessory pathway causing an orthodromic AV reentrant tachycardia was eliminated by radio-frequency ablation. This example emphasizes the need for careful assessment of an ECG tracing, including printed legends and technical data.
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