Complete Heart Block in Infants and Children

Abstract

THE presence of complete heart block in the pediatric age group has been known for many years.¹ A sizable number of publications, consisting mostly of reports of a small number of cases, indicates that third-degree heart block is not too uncommon in children.^{2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11} Three principal considerations prompted the present report. In the first place, the almost uniformly benign prognosis of congenital heart block, proposed by Campbell et al.,^{3 , 4} has recently been challenged by the publication of Molthan et al.¹² reporting 3 fatal cases with Adams–Stokes attacks. Secondly, we believed that the concept of congenital heart block as a solitary finding, . . .