Three Years Experience Of Transtelephonic Electrocardiography In Children

It is not possible to determine dysrhythmias at any time, because those may occur briefly and unpredictably throughout the day. Transtelephonic electrocardiography (TTE) allows arrival to the hospital by the phone line dysrhythmia at the time. The aim of this study was to evaluate the value of TTE in the diagnosis and treatment of dysrhythmias, especially seen intermittently, in pediatric patients. We retrospectively evaluated records of 121 children, followed-up in Pediatric Cardiology Unit between May 2003 and May 2006. The patients were age of between 4 months to 18 years (median age 12 ± 4.4 years). The most common presenting symptoms were palpitation (42.1%), chest pain (15.7%), palpitation together with chest pain (6.6%), syncope (5%), easy fatigability (5%) and also the research of drug efficiency (3.3%). The dysrhythmia findings were determined on TTE in 21 of 110 cases whose standard electrocardiographies were normal. On TTE, supraventricular tachycardia was observed in three of 25 patients with normal HM. The dysrhythmia was detected in 24% of TTE records (supraventricular extrasystoles, ventricular extrasystoles, sinusal tachycardia, supraventricular tachycardia, sinus bradycardia, sinus tachycardia, sinus pause, Mobitz type I atrioventricular block were detected in 11, 7, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1 cases, respectively). Four patients were using drugs (verapamil in 3 and propranolol in 1) before TTE recordings. According to the TTE records, medical treatments were started in 10 patients with previously untreated (verapamil in 5, propranolol in 3, digoxin in 1 and also amiodarone in 1). Eventually, we suggest that HM is a usefull, reliable and non-invasive diagnostic method for the detection of dysrhythmias in patients with dysrhythmia suggestive symptoms and normal ECG. Additionally, TTE should be used in follow-up and treatment of the patients with some dysrhythmias, even undetectable with HM.