Electrocardiographic and Echocardiographic Characterisitics of Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome in Preschool Children

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to estabilish the prevalence, clinical features and relationship between ECG findings and echocardiographic findings of Wolff-Parkinsion-White(WPW) syndrome in asymptomatic preschool children. METHODS: An electrocardiographic screening study was performed on 77,824 preschool children in Jeonbuk province from April, 1999 to August, 2001. Patients with WPW syndrome underwent echocardiographic study. RESULTS: Twenty three patients with WPW syndrome were discovered by electrocardiographic screening of preschool children. The prevalence rate was 2.9 per 10,000 preschool children and there was no significant sexual difference. Two patients had a history of symptoms related to tachyarrythmia. According to the ECG classification of Rosenbaum et al., five patients were type A and 18 were type B. Utilizing the criteria of Gallagher et al, right anterior, 12 patients; right anteiror paraseptal, four patients; left anteiror, three patients. Nineteen of 23 patients underwent echocardiographic study. Four of five patients with type A WPW syndrome had abnormal early systolic anterior motion of left ventricular posterior wall. Twelve of 14 patients with type B had abnormal interventricular septal motion characterized by early sytolic posterior motion immediately after inscription of the delta wave. CONCLUSION: The prevalence rate of preschool children in Jeonbuk province was 2.9/10,000. By the classification according to the electrocardiographic findings, the accessory pathway location was dominant right side than left side. In the echocardiographic study, type A WPW syndrome showed abnormal left ventricular posterior wall motion and type B WPW showed abnormal interventricular septal motion.