Search

Atrial septal aneurysm has been associated with thromboembolic events, interatrial shunting, mitral valve prolapse, and systolic click. An association between atrial septal aneurysm and cardiac arrhythmias has been also described. Twenty patients with atrial septal aneurysm and 19 control subjects performed 24-h Holter monitoring. Frequent (> 10/h) atrial premature beats were observed in seven patients vs. none of the controls (P = 0.008). The mean number of episodes of supraventricular tachycardia and the prevalence of ventricular tachycardia were also higher in the atrial septal aneurysm group (P = 0.044 and P = 0.046, respectively). Left atrial enlargement, mitral valve prolapse and left ventricular hypertrophy were more frequent than in the normal subjects. In conclusion, atrial and ventricular 'complex' arrhythmias occurred more frequently in patients with atrial septal aneurysm than in normal subjects. Further studies in patients with atrial septal aneurysm without other associated echocardiographic abnormalities need to be done to ascertain a potential arrhythmogenicity of this condition.

SIMI 2010 In Italy, emergency medicine (EM) is a new medical specialty, although doctors like me have been working in this field for many years. We started long time ago, and we practiced it without any formal training in any field, and with no specific education. Our medical profession did not consider EM to be a specialty nor that doctors needed special training in emergency care. In fact, ‘‘emergency medicine’’ has always existed ever since patients started entering the medical delivery system; but the ‘‘emergency physician’’ (EP) had never been created because of the myth that anyone could take care of these patients coming to the emergency department (ED), and that there was nothing special about them.