-
Critical care medicine · Apr 1987
Case ReportsAtrial fibrillation with high degree atrioventricular block masquerading as ventricular fibrillation masquerading as asystole during cardiac arrest.
- J P Ornato, E R Gonzales, and R Garnett.
- Crit. Care Med. 1987 Apr 1; 15 (4): 334-5.
AbstractVentricular fibrillation (VF) can masquerade as asystole. We report a 54-yr-old male in cardiac arrest who, on surface ECG, appeared to be in VF or asystole. A bedside intracardiac recording using a transmyocardial pacing wire showed the true rhythm to be atrial fibrillation (AF) with high grade atrioventricular block. AF with a high degree block can masquerade as VF, which simultaneously masquerades as asystole, and can be correctly diagnosed by bedside intracardiac monitoring. Patients who have a flat line rhythm which may represent asystole, fine ventricular fibrillation, or atrial fibrillation with a high degree atrioventricular block may warrant a trial of electrical countershock, high-dose atropine, or transthoracic pacing.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..