Methods other than tilt testing for diagnosing neurocardiogenic (neurally mediated) syncope.

Abstract

The recording of spontaneous episodes of bradycardiac neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS) has shown that: a prolonged ventricular asystole seems necessary to cause syncope; asystole is preceded by other bradyarrhythmias in the vast majority of cases; some warning symptoms precede the loss of consciousness in most cases; conventional dual-chamber pacing is efficacious both in patients with a positive response to carotid sinus massage (CSM) and eyeball compression test (EBC) and in those with a positive response to tilt-testing (TT). CSM, EBC, and TT are established tools for diagnosing NCS, when the recording of spontaneous syncope is lacking. When combined together, they are probably able to correctly identify most patients affected by NCS. Nevertheless, whether the type of reflex induced by the cardiovascular reflexivity maneuvers correlates with that of the spontaneous syncope is largely unknown. Our knowledge suggests that the correlation may be unsatisfactory, owing to the following: the variability of the mechanism of spontaneous syncope from patient to patient and also, in the same patient, from one episode to another; the discordance of the type of response when 2 or 3 tests are positive in the same patient, the response being more frequently asystolic with CSM and EBC and more frequently vasodepressor with TT: the different timing between hypotension induced by CSM (in which it follows the bradycardia) and that induced by TT (in which it usually precedes the bradycardia) and the uncertainty about the timing of hypotension during the spontaneous syncope; the good reproducibility of the spontaneous event by CSM and EBC, but not by TT, when cardiac asystole is the manifestation of NCS; and the fairly high rate of false-positive results of cardiovascular reflexivity maneuvers. Hypotension is the main reason for the failure of pacemaker therapy in all the forms of neurocardiogenic syncope (NCS), whether diagnosed by CSM, EBC, or TT. Thus, the need arises to correctly identify the magnitude of the hypotensive reflexes of spontaneous events.