14th International Congress
THE "NEW FRONTIERS"
OF ARRHYTHMIAS 2000

Jan. 29 - Feb. 5, 2000
Marilleva, Trento, Italy

RT-174

Clinical evaluation and follow-up of patients with right bundle branch block and ST segment elevation in the right precordial leads

Maria Vittoria Pitzalis, Matteo Anaclerio, Giovanni Luzzi, Paolo Rizzon.
Istituto di Cardiologia, Universita di Bari, Italy

Introduction

In 1992, Brugada and Brugada described eight patients with right bundle branch block (RBBB) and persistent ST segment elevation in V1-V3, at high risk for polymorphic ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation (VF)¹. Nowadays, aetiology of this syndrome and mechanisms of ventricular arrhythmias are controversial. In all patients reported by Brugada and Brugada up till now no structural heart disease has been demonstrated^2-5, and in a few of them a genetic disease has been identified involving the cardiac sodium channel gene SCN5A^5-9. On the other hand some investigators reported a few patients with the same electrocardiographic pattern and a right ventricular cardiomyopathy involving the specialized conduction system^10-13.

The aim of this study was to prospectively assess the clinical characteristics and follow-up of patients with RBBB and ST segment elevation in V1-V3 admitted to our Institute.