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Does the heart REALLY stop when you give Adenosine to an SVT patient – find out with POCUS!

June 11, 2014

I know. It’s a question that you have all asked yourselves. Does Adenosine REALLY stop the heart when given for SVT? Thanks to POCUS/EDE, we have the answer! Rob Simard was in Sudbury last year doing his emergency ultrasound fellowship. He saw a patient with recurrent SVT. We decided to go with Adenosine since it had worked in the past. After a few seconds of intermittent pauses (seen both on the rhythm strip and on the ultrasound screen), the Adenosine was successful.

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For the students out there…check out the “Action on the heart” section of the Adenosine page on Wikipedia to find out how Adenosine works. Patients often have a feeling of impending doom when given Adenosine. When you watch the video, you can see why! Some prefer giving Verapamil, which was the drug of choice 20+ years ago for SVT prior to the introduction of Adenosine.

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