Hazards of ventricular pre-excitation to left ventricular systolic function and ventricular wall motion in children: analysis of 25 cases.

AimThe aim was to attach importance to the hazards of ventricular pre-excitation on left ventricular systolic function and size. METHOD: We analysed the clinical, electrophysiological, and echocardiographic characteristics of the 25 cases with abnormal ventricular wall motion, left ventricular systolic dysfunction, or dilation with co-existing right-sided overt accessary pathways before and after ablation or medication during March 2011 and June 2017. Moreover, we compared the therapy effect between patients with ventricular pre-excitation-induced dilated cardiomyopathy and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy without ventricular pre-excitation.ResultAbnormal ventricular wall motion was demonstrated using M-mode echocardiography in 23 cases. The basal segments of the interventricular septum became thin and moved similarly to an aneurysm with typical bulging during end-systole, which was observed in 16 cases. Dilated cardiomyopathy was diagnosed in 14 cases. A total of 23 patients underwent successful ablations and received medications, and the other two patients received only oral medications because of young age. The prognosis of pre-excitation-induced dilated cardiomyopathy is better than idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. All the cases with abnormal ventricular wall motion demonstrated recovery of normal left ventricular ejection fraction and decreased left ventricular end-diastolic diameter through ablation. CONCLUSION: Ventricular pre-excitation caused by right-sided accessory pathways may result in abnormal ventricular wall motion, left ventricular systolic dysfunction, dilation, and even dilated cardiomyopathy. In some cases with dilated cardiomyopathy, ventricular pre-excitation may not be the cause of disease but a harmful factor which hampered the recovering of left ventricular systolic function. These conditions are indications for ablation with good prognosis.