Arrhythmias during acute pericarditis. A prospective study of 100 consecutive cases.

One hundred consecutive patients were examined to ascertain the incidence of clinically significant arrhythmias during acute pericarditis. Only seven arrhythmias, all atrial, occurred, and these only in patients with heart disease. It appears that the vulnerability of the sinus node to being engulfed by subepicardial extension of the inflammatory process is insufficient by itself to provoke arrhythmias in the absence of disease of the myocardium, valves, or coronary arteries.