Atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (synonyms: Atrioventricular paroxysmal tachycardia; Auricular tachycardia; AV nodal reentry tachycardia; AV nodal reentry tachycardia (AVNRT); Ectopic atrial tachycardia; ICD-10-GM I47.1: Supraventricular tachycardia) with/without preexcitation is a cardiac arrhythmia that belongs to the group of conduction disorders.
AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia (AVRT) can be further subdivided based on the presence of preexcitation syndrome (premature excitation of the ventricle via congenital conduction structures that parallel the AV node):
- AVRT with preexcitation (Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome; WPW syndrome) – see causes below.
- AVRT without preexcitation – see causes below.
AVRT is the most common paroxysmal (“seizure-like”) supraventricular tachycardia (PSVT; cardiac arrhythmia in which there is tachycardia (palpitations) with heart rates of 150-220 beats/minute) in adults and accounts for 60-70% of all paroxysmal arrhythmias.
On ECG (electrocardiogram), AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia has a narrow ventricular complex (QRS width ≤ 120 ms) and is therefore called narrow complex tachycardia.
Sex ratio: more than two-thirds of patients with AV nodal re-entry tachycardia are women. WPW syndrome affects men twice as often.
Frequency peak: The disease first manifests usually around 20-50 years of age.
Course and prognosis: In the course of atrioventricular re-entrant tachycardia, there is a sudden seizure-like tachycardia (too fast heartbeat; > 100 beats per minute; here: Heart rate: 160-250/min), which may extend over a period of a few minutes to hours and which returns to normal just as abruptly. Often, patients are otherwise heart-healthy. The situation becomes threatening if the affected person has coronary heart disease (CHD; coronary artery disease) or heart failure (cardiac insufficiency). Then there may be a reduction in cardiac output (HZV), leading to hypotension (low blood pressure), vertigo (dizziness), angina pectoris (“chest tightness”; sudden pain in the heart area), and syncope (momentary loss of consciousness).
