Cardiac arrhythmias in acute coronary syndromes: position paper from the joint EHRA, ACCA, and EAPCI task force

Introduction

It is known that myocardial ischaemia and infarction leads to severe metabolic and electrophysiological changes that induce silent or symptomatic life-threatening arrhythmias. Sudden cardiac death is most often attributed to this pathophysiology, but many patients survive the early stage of an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) reaching a medical facility where the management of ischaemia and infarction must include continuous electrocardiographic (ECG) and hemo- dynamic monitoring, and a prompt therapeutic response to incident sustained arrhythmias. During the last decade, the hospital locations in which arrhythmias are most relevant have changed to include the cardiac catheterization laboratory, since the preferred ...