Pediatric Cardiac Arrhythmias

Frequently encountered in the pediatric population, both in patients with structurally normal hearts and those with congenital heart disease, arrhythmias are a common problem for clinicians. Arrhythmias can manifest in a variety of ways among patients: from the asymptomatic patient to those with life-threatening arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. The spectrum of etiologies for cardiac arrhythmias is broad and the management strategies are contingent upon multiple factors. This chapter aims to focus mostly on the clinical and electrophysiologic characteristics of two major categories of arrhythmias: tachycardias and bradycardias.