Atrial pacing as an adjunct to the management of post-surgical His bundle tachycardia

To examine the benefits of restoring atrioventricular synchrony to children with His bundle tachycardia after operation for congenital heart disease.

Review of clinical outcome of adopting the technique of R wave synchronised atrial pacing as an adjunct to the management of His bundle tachycardia from September of 1987 till June of 1990.

Eleven consecutive children (aged between 3 days and 13 years) with haemodynamically significant His bundle tachycardia after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery.

Atrial pacing synchronised either manually or automatically to the R wave of the His bundle tachycardia was implemented so that atrial depolarisation preceded the following R wave by an appropriate PR interval.

An immediate and sustained increase in mean systemic blood pressure (average 15 mm Hg, range 6-30 mm Hg) was seen with the onset of atrial pacing in 10 of the 11 children. One child, who had undergone a Fontan procedure, developed atrial flutter shortly after the onset of atrial pacing and required direct current cardioversion. Four children died. Of the seven survivors, six have sustained sinus rhythm which returned between two and 10 days after the onset of tachycardia. One of the survivors has severe neurological impairment attributed to a period of low cardiac output during tachycardia; the others are alive and well. In those children who did badly the mean time between arrhythmia occurrence and the start of atrial pacing or cooling or both was nine hours; in those who did well it was one hour.

Atrial pacing synchronous with the His bundle is a useful adjunct in the management of children with His bundle tachycardia after surgery for congenital cardiac disease.