Artifact versus arrhythmia in pseudo-polymorphic tachycardia; case report

Abstract

Vaseem Ahmed, Anish Patel, Abhishek Sharma, Dennis Bloomfield Department of Medicine, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY, USA Abstract: We present the case of a young male patient in sinus rhythm whose electrocardiogram (ECG) was initially misinterpreted as ventricular tachycardia. Electrocardiographic artifact appearing to be ventricular tachycardia commonly occurs and ECG criteria have been described to aid in the discrimination between artifact and true arrhythmia. There are many causes of artifacts and prompt recognition is important to prevent unnecessary interventions. Keywords: artifact, ventricular tachycardia, pseudo-ventricular tachycardia, notch sign, sinus sign