What is paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia?
sally, It is a sudden, brief acceleration of the top two chambers of the heart. It used to be called “paroxysmal atrial tachycardia,” but the name has been changed. It comes in two basic forms, “focal” and “re-entrant.” The focal type means that an extra “circuit” in the electrical connections inside the heart exists. There are a few spots where this happens most commonly, such as at the pulmonary veins. They can cause a burst of electrical “firings” that will speed up the atria. If it is really bothersome, they usually need to be zapped with radio-frequency energy and killed. Then the heart will act normally. The other one, the “re-entrant” kind, has an extra pathway or two from either of the two nodes in the right atrium, usually the sinus node high in the chamber. The signal started by the sinus node travels a short distance toward teh other node, the AV (atriaoventricular) node, but part of the signal flows into this other pathway and goes back to the sinus node where it triggers a
