Ventriculo-atrial conduction time during reciprocating tachycardia with intermittent bundle-branch block in...

Records from patients with the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome were reviewed with particular emphasis on the occurrence of bundle-branch block aberration during reciprocating tachycardia and the significance of this observation with respect to accessory pathway location. Increase by greater than 25 ms in the ventriculoatrial interval during reciprocating tachycardia with bundle-branch block, when compared to reciprocating tachycardia with normal intraventricular conduction, occurred only with right or left free wall accessory pathways. No patient with a septal accessory pathway proven by epicardial mapping showed a ventriculoatrial interval prolongation greater than 20 ms during bundle-branch block aberration. Measurement of ventriculo-atrial interval during bundle-branch block abe-ration also helped to diagnose accessory pathways AH and HV intervals as well as ventriculo-atrial times, may give midleading information. In one patient increase in cycle length during left bundle-branch block was the result of prolonged HV interval rather than prolonged ventriculo-atrial interval. In another patient cycle length remained the same during bundle-branch block while the ventriculo-atrial interval increased by an increment identical to the decrease in AH interval.