Incessant junctional reciprocating tachycardia caused by dual atrioventricular nodal pathways and atrio-nodal bypass tract.

A case is described with clinical and electrocardiographic findings of incessant junctional reciprocating tachycardia. Electrophysiological study showed that longitudinal dissociation of the atrioventricular node into two pathways was responsible for the maintenance of the arrhythmia. The two intranodal pathways had different refractory periods but reciprocally related and overlapping conduction times (anterograde fast, retrograde slow, and vice versa). Induction and termination of the arrhythmia was related to the presence of a partial atrio-nodal bypass tract.