Analysis of age of onset of accessory pathway-mediated tachycardia in men and women

Abstract

diated tachycardia. 1‐4 However, a detailed analysis of the inter-relationships between gender, accessory pathway location, and the age of onset of accessory pathway-mediated tachycardia has been lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the interactions between gender, accessory pathway location, and the age of onset of accessory pathwaymediated tachycardia. ••• The subjects of this study were 910 patients who underwent an electrophysiologic study at the University of Michigan Medical Center and met the following selection criteria: a history of symptomatic paroxysmal tachycardia; the ability to recollect the age of onset of the tachycardia; a single accessory pathway; an inducible accessory pathway-mediated tachycardia in the electrophysiology laboratory; and successful radiofrequency ablation of the accessory pathway. Patients who had 1 mechanism of tachycardia or 1 accessory pathway were excluded from the study. There were 536 men (59%) and 374 women (41%), and their mean age at the time of the electrophysiologic study was 37 15 years ( SD; range 10 to 84 years). The location of the accessory pathways was classified as being left sided, right sided, or septal, according to the site at which successful radiofrequency ablation was achieved. Among the 910 accessory pathways, 541 (59%) were left sided, 131 (14%) were right sided, and 238 (26%) were septal. In 328 patients (36%), the accessory pathway was concealed and capable only of retrograde conduction, and in the remaining 64% of patients, the accessory pathway was manifest and conducted in the anterograde direction. Continuous variables are expressed as mean 1 SD. Student’ s t test was used to compare 2 groups. Analysis of variance was used when comparisons involved 2 groups. When group differences were found, 1-way analysis of variance was followed by the