Atrioventricular Reentry Tachycardia

Abstract

Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) is the most common tachyarrhythmia in children, occurring in as many as 1–3 in 2,000 children. Of these, 90 % involve a reentrant circuit (Chap. 3) including atrioventricular (AV) reentrant tachycardia (AVRT), AV node reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT, Chap. 5), or persistent junctional reciprocal tachycardia (Chap. 6). The majority (50–60 %) of reentrant SVT presents in the first year of life, but may exhibit spontaneous resolution. When documented SVT is occurs in infants younger than 6 months of age 15–40 % will not have a recurrence of SVT beyond their first year of life. As children age the relative proportion of those with AV reentrant tachycardia diminishes from 85 % in children less than 1 year to 82 % in children between 1 and 5 years and 56 % between 6 and 10 years of age. As children pass into the adolescent years, AVNRT becomes slightly more common than AVRT. Finally, AVRT is more common in males.