TREATMENT OF PAROXYSMAL SUPRAVENTRICULAR TACHYCARDIA IN CHILDHOOD WITH IV ADENOSINE

Paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia is the most frequent significa nt arrhythmia in the pediatric age group, especially in the first year of life. In neonates and infants there are important limitations for the commonly used drugs such as verapamil and digitalis. In an open Sw iss multicentre study we treated 19 children with a total of 29 episod es of tachycardia by means of adenosine i.v. as the drug of first choi ce. 76% of all the tachycardias were converted, whereas the success ra te was 87% if only tachycardias with atrioventricular reentry were con sidered. The important advantage of adenosine lies in its very short h alf-life of about 15 seconds, which means that the rare relevant, and the more common mild, side effects are quite limited in duration. A ma jor disadvantage are recurrences in about one third of cases. We concl ude that adenosine is an efficient and safe treatment for paroxysmal s upraventricular tachycardia in the whole pediatric age group including neonates and infants.