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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

A Model of Long-Term Ventricular Fibrillation in Isolated Rat Hearts
Published on: February 17, 2023
Large blood transfusion as a rare cause of ventricular fibrillation
1Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Abstract:
Large blood transfusions are common in clinical practice. Though several complications have been described with this procedure, cardiac arrhythmias occur uncommonly in this setting. We describe a case of a previously healthy 17-year-old girl who developed wide-complex ventricular tachycardia rapidly culminating in a ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest several hours following an uneventful large-volume blood transfusion. Hypomagnesemia was detected on postcardiac arrest investigations. A review of this life-threatening complication and discussion on the ways to prevent it are presented.
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