Chest
Volume 103, Issue 4, April 1993, Pages 1299-1301
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Selected Reports
Adenosine-induced Torsades de Pointes

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Physicians are finding increased applications for adenosine as a diagnostic and therapeutic modality for a variety of cardiac dysrhythmias. Its short half life and lack of reported major complications make it an ideal pharmacologic agent to utilize for diagnosis and treatment. Herein we report a case of polymorphic ventricular tachycardia induced by adenosine.

Section snippets

CASE REPORT

A 62-year-old man was taken to the operating room for treatment of a diverticular abscess involving the left iliopsoas muscle. Postoperatively, he demonstrated multiple episodes of atrial flutter and paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia with heart rates up to 170 beats per minute. In order to control the recurrent episodes of supraventricular tachycardia, the patient eventually required a continuous infusion of procainamide, 2 mg/min, and esmolol, 50 Digitalis also was utilized both for rate

DISCUSSION

Adenosine recently was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for intravenous use in patients with paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia. It is particularly effective in those patients whose supraventricular tachycardia is the result of atrioventricular reciprocating or atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia.1 In many circumstances, it has supplanted verapamil as the treatment of choice for supraventricular dysrhythmia where the underlying electrophysiologic mechanism is unclear.

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The opinions or assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

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