Holter recording and event recorder monitoring are two commonly used diagnostic tools for long-term outpatient electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring, while hospitalized patients are routinely monitored by hospital Telemetry equipment.

In this article, the author describes a case report of a patient with atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia. The author notes that, with investigation, the obvious diagnosis may not always be the correct one.

Mercy Heart Institute is among the nation’s finest cardiac programs and serves the greater Sacramento area as well as other geographic locations through a large referral program. In conjunction with the Sisters of Mercy, our cardiovascular care team is dedicated to providing patients with compassionate, quality, cost-effective care through state-of-the-art advancements in research, diagnostic screen, surgical and interventional procedures, clinical education and preventive/wellness programs for the improvement of cardiovascular health. Leading edge research keeps Mercy Heart Institute at the forefront of care.

The Eighth Annual Conference on Electrophysiology was held September 6–8, 2002, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This annual meeting is a great opportunity for those involved with the South Atlantic Society of Electrophysiology for Allied Professionals (SASEAP) to get updated information in this field. CEUs were provided at the end of the course. Presentations at the Friday session covered basic and advanced electrophysiology, difficult pacing strips, and syncope. Saturday’s sessions included talks on long QT syndrome, management of arrhythmias in adults with congenital heart disease, re-entrant tachycardia, and ventricular tachycardia in normal hearts. Topics on Sunday featured information on biventricular pacing and epicardial ablation. EP Lab Digest is proud to feature some of the summaries from the presentations held. This year’s speakers included Sgt. Albert Paul, CVIS, Karthik Ramaswamy, MD, Richard G. Sheahan, MD, Cdr. Daniel Paul Shmorhun, MC, USNR, Tony Simmons, MD, Tom

Lahey Clinic Medical Center is a tertiary care teaching hospital located in the Northwest suburbs of Boston. The institution is structured as a multi-specialty group practice which owns and manages the hospital, in which it is the exclusive user.

Patients with syncope of unknown origin are commonly evaluated using several diagnostic tools. It has been suggested that there is a significant overlap between the results of head-up tilt table testing (HUT) and carotid sinus massage (CSM). We retrospectively studied the association between tilt table test results and CSM outcome in 136 patients with syncope or near-syncope who underwent both tests. Carotid sinus massage was performed prior to the tilt test, with the patient supine. The patient was then tilted to 60 degrees for up to 30 minutes. If this did not elicit a symptomatic abnormal hemodynamic response, the tilt was repeated for up to 30 minutes with intravenous isoproterenol.

With approximately 13,000 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) instruments installed worldwide, over 35 million MR imaging studies are performed each year. A revolutionary tool, MRI has become the procedure of choice for a diagnosing a wide variety of disorders, including those of the central nervous and musculoskeletal systems. It has been suggested that we are “on the brink of another revolution”1 with MRI, perhaps becoming the diagnostic tool of choice for imaging the cardiovascular system. For example, recent publications have highlighted the growing potential role of MR imaging in coronary artery disease2 with experts editorializing that “the issue should be not if, but when” MR angiography will “become an acceptable alternative to the standard, invasive approach?”3