Importance of the simultaneous ECG during routine EEG recording

摘要

OBJECTIVE: Ictal and interictal ECG abnormalities are not rare in the patients with epilepsy. The aim of our study was definition of arrhythmias during simultaneous routine EEG- ECG recordings and the effect of this on follow up of the patients.METHODS: The keywords related to cardiac arrhythmia have been searched in all EEG recording reports between January 2011-February 2012. The demographic features, diagnosis or pre-diagnosis of patients during routine EEG recordings have been obtained from Hospital Data System. RESULTS: In all 2136 EEG reports, 48 (% 2) of them included keywords related to cardiac arrhytmias. 18 of 48 patients had exstrasystole, 14 had tacycardia. 13 reports had no detail about type of arrhythmia, only noted as arrhythmia and 3 patients had bloc or bradiarrhythmia. After routine EEG recordings, 6 patients underwent to cardiology follow up in our center. 1 patient with an asystole during EEG recording had treated via a pace-maker. CONCLUSION: The detection of cardiac arrhythmias is important in diagnosis and follow up the patients who are referring to routine EEG laboratuary. Dedicating one channel to ECG recording can only take few minutes even in busy EEG laboratories and make big differences in some patients’ management.