The Patient:   This ECG was obtained from an elderly man who was suffering an exacerbation of congestive heart failure.  He had a history of CHF and hypertension.  We do not have other history available to us.

The ECG:  The rhythm is sinus at 97 bpm (fast for this patient). It is regular with no ectopy.  The PR interval is 155 ms (.15 seconds), and the P waves are upright in the inferior leads. The frontal plane QRS axis is -56 degrees – abnormally leftward.  Notice that Leads II, III, and aVF are all negative.  AVR is equiphasic – the axis travels perpendicular to the positive electrode of aVR, toward the patient’s left shoulder.  The QRS duration is 111 ms (.11 sec.).  This is very close to being wide enough for a diagnosis of left bundle branch block, and represents poor conduction throughout the ventricles. On the chest leads side, there is poor R wave progression. V1 through V4 look almost the same, small r and large S.

The ST segments are generally concave up, and the J points are at the baseline – no ST elevation or depression.  There are no pathological Q waves, unless we count V1, which may have lost it’s Q wave as part of the general poor R wave progression.

If you are an ECG instructor, you probably carefully choose ECGs to illustrate the topic you are teaching. One of the reasons for the existence of the ECG Guru website is our desire to provide lots of such illustrations for you to choose from.

Sometimes, though, an ECG does not clearly illustrate one specific dysrhythmia well, because the interpretation of the ECG depends on so many other factors.  In order to get it “right”, we would need to know information about the patient’s history, presentation, lab results, or previous ECGs. We might need to see the ECG done immediately before or after the one we are looking at.  Some ECG findings must ultimately be confirmed by an electrophysiology study before we can know for sure what is going on.

For those of us who are “ECG nerds”, it can be fun to debate our opinions and even more fun to hear from wiser, more advanced practitioners about their interpretations.

My belief, as a clinical instructor, is that we must teach strategies for treating the patient who has a “controversial” ECG that take into account the level of the practitioner, the care setting, and the patient’s hemodynamic status.  In some settings, it might be absolutely forbidden for a first-responder to cardiovert atrial fibrillation, for example.  But atrial fib is routinely cardioverted under controlled conditions in hospitals.  The general rule followed by emergency providers that “all wide-complex tachycardias are v tach until proven otherwise” has no doubt prevented deaths in situations where care providers did not agree on the origin of the tachycardia.

The ECG:    We do not have much patient information to go with this ECG, just that it is from a 71-year-old woman who developed severe hypotension and lost consciousness, but was revived with transcutaneous pacing.   Here is what we do know about this ECG:

·        There are regular P waves, at a rate of about 39 bpm (sinus bradycardia).

This ECG is from a 77 year old woman who was brought to the Emergency Department by EMS. She was found to be suffering from sepsis.

ECG Interpretation      The ECG shows the expected sinus tachycardia at 123 beats per minute.  There is significant baseline artifact, of the type usually seen with muscle tension.  The artifact makes it difficult to assess P waves and PR intervals.

What we do see is RIGHT BUNDLE BRANCH BLOCK and LEFT ANTERIOR HEMIBLOCK, also called LEFT ANTERIOR FASCICULAR BLOCK.  Together, these are called BIFASCICULAR BLOCK.  Most people have three main fascicles in the interventricular conduction system:  the right bundle branch and the two branches of the left bundle branch, the anterior-superior fascicle and the posterior-inferior fascicle.  In bifascicular block, two of the three are blocked.

The ECG criteria for right bundle branch block are:

     *     wide QRS (> .12 seconds)

     *     rSR’ pattern in V_{1 .}  (the initial R wave may be hard to see, but the QRS will be predominantly upright.

Today’s ECG is from a 75 year old man who has been experiencing syncope. 

Examination of the ECG shows a sinus bradycardia at just under 40 bpm.  There is a first-degree AV block, with a PR interval of about .28 seconds (280 ms).  There is a right bundle branch block.  The ECG criteria for right bundle branch block are:  supraventricular rhythm, wide QRS (120 ms in this case), rSR’ pattern in V1, and  a small, wide S wave in Leads I and V6.  There is actually a “terminal delay”, or extra wave at the end of each QRS complex, reflecting late repolarization of the right ventricle. 

This ECG also shows a left anterior fascicular block, also called left anterior hemiblock.  The left bundle branch usually has two main branches, the anterior-superior and the posterior-inferior.  ECG criteria for left anterior fascicular block are: left axis deviation with a small r wave in Lead III and a small q waves with tall R waves in Leads I and aVL.  There is also a prolonged R wave peak time (> 45 ms) in aVL. There is usually a slightly prolonged QRS, but in this case, there is widening of the QRS due to the RBBB.   Because the right bundle branch is blocked, and one fascicle of the left bundle is blocked, the patient is said to have a “bifascicular block”.  Only one fascicle remains available for conduction from the atria to the ventricles.

We have no information about what caused the conduction block in these two fascicles, but should the third fascicle fail, the patient will be in a complete AV block.  An AV block at the level of the bundle branches will result in an idioventricular escape rhythm – wide QRS complexes with very slow rates – which is a low-output rhythm.  

This patient has also had syncope, which was determined to be related to his bradycardia.  He had an AV sequential pacemaker implanted and did well.