This ECG is taken from an elderly man who has a history of complete heart block and AV sequential pacemaker.  On the day of this ECG, he presented to the Emergency Department with chest pain and shortness of breath. His vital signs were stable and within normal limits.  We do not have information about his treatment or outcome. 

I don’t see spikes.  How do we know this is a paced rhythm?  The ECG clearly shows the presence of an AV pacemaker.  There are very tiny pacer “spikes”, probably best seen in Leads III, aVF, aVL, and most of the precordial leads.  Other ECG signs that this is a paced rhythm are:  wide QRS at about .16 seconds (160 ms); abnormal left frontal plane axis; regular rhythm with AV dissociation (there are P waves seen occasionally that have no fixed relationship to the QRS complexes).  Also, V6 is negative.  That rules out left bundle branch block unless the electrodes are misplaced.  There are no capture beats in this strip.  The patient appears to be, at least right now, 100% dependent on the paced rhythm. 

Why does the presence of a pacemaker make it harder to diagnose an M.I. from the ECG?  Wide-QRS rhythms, such as right-ventricular paced rhythms, left bundle branch block, and ventricular ectopic rhythms, usually have “discordant ST and T wave changes”.  That is, when the QRS is positive (upright), the ST and T wave are negative.  The reverse is also true:  when the QRS is negative and wide, the ST and T wave changes are positive (ST elevation).  This is not true for right bundle branch block because the conduction delay that causes the widening of the QRS is in the right ventricle, and the ST segment is reflecting the LEFT ventricle’s repolarization.  Discordant ST changes can make it difficult to determine from the ECG alone that there is an ST elevation M.I. (STEMI).  Diagnosis usually must be made from patient presentation, ECG changes over time, and cardiac enzymes – or more definitively from cardiac angiogram. Pacemakers that produce narrow QRS complexes do not cause discordant ST changes. 

This ECG is taken from a woman who had suffered for several years with intractable intermittent atrial fibrillation. She had tolerated medications poorly, and several attempts at electric cardioversion had resulted in only temporary relief. Ultimately, she chose to undergo AV node ablation.  In the electrophysiology lab, her AV node was destroyed, preventing the atrial fib impulses from penetrating into the ventricles.  This resulted in a “man-made” complete AV block.  A pacemaker was implanted in the EP lab.  When she is in atrial fibrillation, the fibrillatory waves of the atria INHIBIT the atrial pacing electrode from firing, so she has no paced P waves at that time.  The right ventricular pacing electrode functions without inhibition, and makes a wide QRS complex with a leftward axis deviation (normal for RV pacing). 

In this ECG, we see the patient WITHOUT atrial fib, and the pacemaker is pacing the atria AND the ventricles, in a sequential fashion.  The spikes are very hard to see, as this is a “bipolar” pacemaker, which makes much smaller spikes than a “unipolar” pacemaker.  Some ECG machines will automatically enhance the spikes, but this one did not.  We have marked a “sample” atrial spike in blue for you and one of the ventricular spikes in red.  Each beat on this ECG actually has appropriately-timed atrial and ventricular stimuli (spikes), and the patient has optimized cardiac output provided by the “atrial kick”. A P wave occurring just before a QRS indicates that the ventricles are filling from the forceful contraction of the atria.  This provides much better filling than when the atria are not beating or are fibrillating. 

This is a good ECG to use to show your students how we can recognize a paced rhythm without being sure of the spikes.  Of course, without other evidence (patient history and exam), we can’t know for sure that this is a paced rhythm, but the steady, normal rate, wide complexes, and left axis deviation are signs of RV pacing.  Look for negatively-deflected QRS complexes in II, III, and aVF and positive QRSs in aVL and aVR. 

When pacing only one ventricle, the impulse travels relatively slowly through the other ventricle, resulting in wide QRS complexes.  This then results in SECONDARY ST-T WAVE CHANGES.  Wherever the QRS is positive, you will normally see some ST depression and T wave inversion.  In leads with negative QRS complexes, the opposite is true, and you will see ST elevation and upright T waves.  This can make evaluation of ST segments for acute M.I. difficult.

This ECG was donated to the ECG Guru by Brent Dubois, and was originally published on the FaceBook page, Paramedic Tips & Tricks.  We published it to this site three years ago, but believe it should be shown again, as it is somewhat rare to catch a good-quality 12-Lead ECG of an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator pacemaer using overdrive pacing to terminate a ventricular tachycardia.  Most of our examples have been rhythm strips.

In this strip, we see the patient in ventricular tachycardia (V tach) at a rate of about 190 / minute.  The ICD, in response to the fast rate, delivers a short burst of even faster paced beats.  The physological rule in the heart is, "the fastest pacemaker controls the heart".  Once the pacemaker has terminated the V tach, it paces at a much slower rate.  It is pacing the atria, and the conduction system is intact, allowing the impulse to travel normally through the ventricles.  If the sinus node is able to "outpace" the slower paced rhythm, the heart will resume a sinus rhythm.

This is called "overdrive pacing" and is done automatically by an ICD that is programmed to do so.  Overdrive pacing can also be accomplished by a temporary transvenous pacer or transcutaneous pacemaker.  

This ECG is taken from a patient with an implanted pacemaker who was experiencing near-syncope.  She was taken to the hospital by EMS, where the pacemaker was adjusted to obtain ventricular capture.  This ECG did not have a Lead II rhythm strip, so the 12-lead ECG is being presented.  The P waves have been marked with a "P", pacemaker spikes marked with an arrow, and the QRS complexes marked with a "J" because they are junctional.  Because we can see 12 leads, or viewpoints, the morphology of the P waves and QRS complexes changes each time the machine switches to a new lead.

The underlying rhythm is sinus, with nearly regular P waves occuring at a rate of about 72 beats per minute.  The QRS complexes are also regular, but they are dissociated from the P waves.  Because the rate is near or just under 40 bpm, and the QRS complexes are narrow, this represents a slow junctional rhythm.  Because both atrial and ventricular rhythms are regular, but not associated with each other, an interpretation of complete heart block (third-degree AV block) can be made.  This explains why the patient had a pacemaker implanted.

The pacer spikes, for the most part, track the P waves, which is how this pacemaker is programmed.  They are not followed by a paced QRS complex, however.  This is failure to capture.  The second and fourth P waves did not stimulate a pacer spike because of their proximity to the T wave of the junctional beat.  The mA (energy setting) was adjusted in the Emergency Dept., and the pacemaker did not require repositioning.  The patient regained a reliable paced rhythm.

This section of the ECG Guru is meant to be for your basic students.  Pacemakers now have become very complex, with many options and variable settings.  So complex, that I would not feel comfortable getting into any more detail than I have here (although visitors to the site are welcome to).  It is important that, if you deal with patients in an emergency setting, you do not tell the patient that "something is wrong with their pacemaker" until it has been evaluated by a qualified person who can electronically interrogate the device.  It can be very difficult to determine from an ECG how a pacemaker is programmed, and how it should be reacting.  Since this patient had symptoms related to the bradycardia, and since pacemaker spikes occurred free of any refractory period and did not produce QRS complexes, it is safe to say there needs to be an adjustment.

In an emergency, with serious symptoms present, a transcutaneous or transvenous temporary pacemaker can be used.  Medications such as Atropine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine are also used, depending upon the type of AV block and the resources available.