Acute Chest Pain and Broad Complex Tachycardia. A Non-typical Case of Pre-excited Atrial Fibrillation.

Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is a common condition in the emergency department. A case is presented of a 76-year-old patient with acute chest pain and broad complex tachycardia. Despite the fact that previous and post cardioversion ECG tracings in sinus rhythm showed no signs of pre-excitation, the characteristic pattern of pre-excited atrial fibrillation (AF) is recognized and after successful DC cardioversion the patient is referred for catheter ablation of the accessory pathway.

Post-traumatic pseudoaneurysm producing coronary milking.

Left ventricular pseudoaneurysm is a rare complication of myocardial infarction, but it may also result from cardiac surgery, endocarditis, chest trauma, tumours, electrophysiological studies and congenital defects. An accidentally discovered uncommon case of a post-traumatic pseudoaneurysm that produced a selective compression of the circumflex coronary artery during systole is reported.

Familial restrictive cardiomyopathy with atrioventricular block without skeletal myopathy.

Familial restrictive cardiomyopathy is an autosomal dominant cardiomyopathy histologically characterized by myocyte hypertrophy and interstitial fibrosis. The case of a 54-year-old man diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy is reported. The patient had been implanted with a two-chambered pacemaker for a complete atrioventricular block 12 years before.

Pericardial effusion: clinical and analytical parameters clues.

Prospectively, clinical and biochemical data of 83 patients with a diagnosis of pericardial effusion were studied. The etiologies were as follows: Idiopathic: 42 cases (50%); Tuberculous: 18 cases (22%); Neoplastic: 14 cases (17%); Other: 9 cases (11%) with a miscellaneous etiology. Sedimentation rate resulted significantly higher in Tuberculous group (67-102), p<0.