A young patient comes into your RESUS area complaining of palpitations, and you get handed this EKG. What do you do?
A fib with an accessory pathway can go so fast that it can be misdiagnosed as V tach/ SVT, however if misdiagnosed, the usual treatment could cause you to push the patient into v fib and even death!
Can reach rates of 250-300 as opposed to our usual bread and butter a fib with RVR
Avoid all AV nodal blockers if concerned that there may be an accessory pathway involved
Procainamide is your agent of choice
A great review of the pre-excitation syndromes
http://lifeinthefastlane.com/ecg-library/pre-excitation-syndromes/
EKG Guru Amal Mattu has a wonderful 20 min video on this topic that explains it really well
http://ekgumem.tumblr.com/post/104045855859/17-yom-with-palpitations-what-drugs-are
