Cardiac conduction defects
Main Article Content
Keywords
Brugada syndrome, catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, long QT syndrome, short QT syndrome, Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, familial atrial fibrillation
Abstract
Defects in cardiac electric impulse formation or conduction can lead to an irregular beat (arrhythmia) that can cause sudden death without any apparent cause or after stress. In the following sections, we describe the genetic disorders associated with primary cardiac conduction defects, primarily caused by mutations in ion channel genes. Primary indicates that these disorders are not caused by drugs and are not secondary to other disorders like cardiomyopathies (described in the next section).