The patient:  This ECG is from an 87-year-old man who was transported to the Emergency Department by paramedics. His chief complaint, as reported by caregivers, was lethargy, fever, and a declining mental status.  He appeared tired and slightly confused, and was normotensive.

The ECG:  There are a rhythm strip with two leads, II and III, and also a standard 12-lead ECG. The RHYTHM STRIP shows a tachycardiac rhythm that slows very slightly toward the end.  The rate is around 107 bpm, with an R to R interval of approximately 543 ms in the earlier, regular portion.  There are regular P waves present, all followed by QRS complexes.  Most of the QRS complexes are normal width, but the 2^nd, 5^th, and 8^th are slightly wide at 130 ms, or .13 seconds.

These wider QRS complexes represent aberrant conduction with LBBB occurring intermittently.  Aberrant conduction often occurs due to a faster heart rate, but the only clue here is the intermittent conduction disturbance seems to disappear when the rate slows very slightly.  It is hard to determine mechanism of aberrant conduction when we have only a ten-second rhythm strip.

The 12-LEAD ECG  has essentially the same rate and rhythm, except all the beats in the first ¾ of the ECG are conducted aberrantly, in a LEFT BUNDLE BRANCH BLOCK pattern.  This indicates that the LBB is refractory at this time.  Beat No. 15 is premature (PAC).  The pause after the PAC allows the left bundle branch to repolarize, conducting one single beat normally.

This ECG is a good example of sinus rhythm with aberrantly-conducted PACs.  The tracing was donated to the ECG Guru several years ago by Dr. Ahmed from Sanjiban Hospital in India.  We have no patient data for this tracing. 

The underlying rhythm here is normal sinus rhythm. Most of the parameters – rate, PR interval, and QRS duration – are normal.  The QTc interval, which is the QT interval corrected to a rate of 60 bpm, is prolonged at 568 ms.  We do not know the patient’s clinical condition or medications, so we cannot guess at the reason.  However, a prolonged QTc is associated with an increased risk of Torsades de pointes, a type of polymorphic ventricular tachycardia. 

The first three beats appear the same (Leads I, II, and III).  However, the first R-to-R interval is shorter than the second one.  This could be due to rate variation, a concealed sinus block, or a premature atrial contraction (PAC).   The P wave of the “early” beat, marked #1, looks slightly different from the other P waves in Lead II, but, because of the slow rate, there is no way to be sure without a longer rhythm strip.  After the possible PAC, the rhythm becomes coupled, probably atrial bigeminy, where every other beat is a PAC.  There are several mechanisms that cause grouped beating, but atrial ectopic bigeminy is the most common. Normally, PACs have different-looking P waves compared to the sinus beats.  In this ECG, the P waves are often buried in the preceding T waves, and are hard to evaluate. 

This strip was taken from a patient at rest.  It shows a regular tachycardia with a slightly-widened QRS complex at about .10 seconds duration.  It is somewhat difficult to evaluate the baseline for P waves or flutter waves.  We ALWAYS recommend multi-lead assessment for such evaluation.  The P waves (or flutter waves) here have a sharp point, and can be easily "marched out", with a rate of about 300 per minute.

Whenever the ventricular rate is near 150/min., we should always consider the possibility of atrial flutter with 2:1 conduction.  Since atrial flutter results in atrial depolarization at around 250 - 350 per minute, conducting every other P wave results in a rate of about 150.  It can masquerade as sinus tach, but a patient with sinus tach at such a fast rate would probably have an obvious cause for a rapid heart rate, such as hypovolemia, drug overdose, or exertion.  This rhythm could also be mistaken for atrial tachycardia or other forms of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT, PSVT, AVNRT, etc.).   Multiple leads can more easily uncover the flutter waves running continuously "behind" and "through" the QRS complexes.

There is one beat that is obviously different from the others.  This beat is about the same width as the other QRS complexes, but is opposite in direction.  This probably represents aberrant conduction, possibly a hemiblock that occurs only in this beat.  Careful measurement will show that this QRS is very slightly early, while the others are all very regular. The slight width of all the QRS complexes suggests that there is a conduction delay, which cannot be diagnosed on one strip with no patient history available.

There are other differential diagnoses, such as ventricular tachycardia with a captured sinus beat.  We welcome discussion of this interesting strip. 

This ECG was donated to the ECG Guru by Dr. Arnel Carmona, one of our favorite Gurus.  You will not often see such a great example of this.  We are very grateful to Dr. Carmona for his contribution to learning. Dr. Carmona's new blog is EZG - ECG for beginners and enthusiasts.    

An adult patient was admitted due to palpitations.  What is this rhythm?This is a tachyarrhythmia that initially is regular wide complex (RBB morphology) and later became regular narrow complex at a rate of about 187 bpm. There is normalization of the QRS without a change in heart rate. In the latter part of the tracing (narrow complex), pseudo-r can be seen in V1. So, this is SVT with aberrancy with spontaneous normalization.

What is the cause of the intraventricular aberration during acceleration of heart rate? It could be due to failure of the refractory period to shorten or possible lengthening in response to acceleration. 

What is the cause of the normalization of the of the QRS? The normalization of intraventricular conduction could be due to the gradual shortening of bundle branch refractory period in response to the tachycardia.