Undersensing of Spontaneous Ventricular Fibrillation as a Cause of Sudden Death in a Child

pp 317-320

Abstract

In few cases implantable cardiodefibrillators have been reported to undersense ventricular fibrillation, and most of them happened during the measurement of defibrillation thresh-olds. This type of undersensing has been suggested as a potential cause of sudden death. In this case report we describe a 4-year old boy with hypertrophic myocardiopathy who suffered a spontaneous episode of ventricular fibrillation with a great alternation in the amplitude of local ventricular electrograms. The episode was undersensed by the device and therefore it was not treated, causing an episode of sudden death.