Clinical characteristics and therapeutic effect of tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy in 22 children / 临床儿科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectives To explore the clinical symptoms, therapy and prognosis of tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy (TIC) in children. Methods Clinical data of 22 children with TIC from July 2007 to July 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. Results TIC was mostly seen in male infants and 81.82%of TIC was caused by atrial arrhythmias. The clinical symptom relieved after arrhythmia and ventricular rates were under control with average effective treatment time of (14.00 ± 8.20) days. Ten patients had tachycardia recurrence, 7 of them had atrial arrhythmia and their clinical symptoms were improved after treatment;while 3 of them showed longer time of therapy with average treatment time of (19.50±8.40) days (P<0.05). Five children underwent radiofrequency ablation before school age and got good therapeutic effect. The post-treatment echocardiographic parameters showed cardiac function of TIC children was significantly improved after treatment, including left ventricular end-diastolic diameter index, left ventricular end-systolic diameter index, left ventricular ejection fraction and shortening score (all P<0.05). Conclusions Childhood TIC is a reversible myocardial dysfunction and its prognosis is good. TIC can be induced by various types of tachyarrhythmias and normally by atrial arrhythmia. The preferred treatment of TIC is administration of antiarrhythmic drugs but radiofrequency ablation is needed to ventricular arrhythmias induced TIC.