ELECTROCARDIOGRAMS IN CHILDREN WITH BRONCHIAL ASTHMA

Abstract

Electrocardiograms (ECG ) from 124 asthmatic children were analysed with a view to defining the cardiac complications of bronchial asthma. Thirty-three percent of the patients had airway obstruction when the E C G was recorded, yet none had any significant cardiac arrhythmia. The P waves and P - R interval were each normal in all but one patient. One patient had right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH), but in twenty-five others (20% ) R waves suggestive of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH ) were recorded in V5-6. The ST segment was elevated in seventeen patients (14% ) and depressed in twelve others (10%), most of whom had suffered from severe asthma for 3 or more years. These findings confirm the rarity of RVII in bronchial asthma, and also imply that serious arrhythmias in asthmatic children should not be perfunctorily ascribed to airway obstruction; other causes of arrhythmia should be sought. We advise that beta-agonist bronchodilators should be cautiously prescribed to asthmatic Africans who may be rendered more susceptible to the arrhythmogenic tendency of such drugs by an underlying LVM