A Rare Case of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy Co-existing with Isolated Left Ventricular Non-compaction

ABSTRACT Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy is a rare heart-muscle disorder characterized by progressive replacement of right ventricular myocardium by fibrofatty tissue. Noncompaction of the ventricular myocardium is also rare congenital cardiomyopathy, characterized by an arrest in intrauterine endomyocardial morphogenesis. We present an extremely rare patient who presented with incessant ventricular tachycardia and who had both of these two cardiomyopathies at the same time.

Ultrasonographic evaluation of sciatic nerves in patients with spinal cord injury.

STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional, controlled study. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the sciatic nerves of subjects with spinal cord injury (SCI) by using ultrasound (US) imaging and to explore whether US measurements are associated with clinical and electrophysiological findings. SETTING: National Rehabilitation Center in Ankara, Turkey. METHODS: Fifteen SCI subjects (12 male (M), 3 female (F)) and 23 (16 M, 7 F) healthy controls were included in the study. After clinical assessment of the subjects, lower limb nerve conduction studies and US imaging of the sciatic nerves were performed. Cross-sectional area (CSA) values of the sciatic nerves were correlated with the clinical and electrophysiologic data. RESULTS: Mean CSA values were lower in the patient group when compared with the control group (P=0.042). Reduced compound motor action potentials regarding tibial and peroneal nerves were observed in the patient group (P=0.003 and P=0.005, respectively). US measurements did not correlate with the electrophysiological findings. However, sciatic nerve CSA values were positively correlated with body mass index in the control (r=0.534, P<0.05) and patient (r=0.482, P<0.05) groups. CONCLUSION: Sciatic nerves seem to be smaller in subjects with SCI. Together with our electrophysiological data, this preliminary finding could possibly be attributed to primary axonal loss.

Symptomatic bradycardia caused by premature atrial contractions originating from right atrial appendage.

Premature atrial contraction is a common form of supraventricular arrhythmias. In rare cases, severe symptoms other than palpitation may occur. In this report, we present a patient with symptomatic bradycardia which developed secondary to blocked premature atrial contractions and was successfully treated with radiofrequency ablation.