Introduction: Although the electrophysiologic criteria for dual atrioventricular nodal pathways are well established, the anatomical substrate is still unclear.
Methods and results: We examined the hearts from 10 patients who had been studied electrophysiologically prior to cardiac transplantation. All 10 patients were male, aged 22 to 60 years. Nine of the 10 patients had dual atrioventricular nodal pathways according to accepted criteria. Histologic studies of the atrioventricular conduction system showed normal structure of the atrioventricular node in all 10 hearts, with minor variations within the node in 3 cases, within the penetrating bundle in 3 cases, and within the nonbranching bundle in 3 cases. The atrial approaches to the atrioventricular node were generally scanty in 6 hearts. The solitary case that was shown electrophysiologically to lack dual pathways had no obvious difference in the structure of the nodal area other than sparsity of transitional cells. We were unable to locate any extranodal atrial tracts as described by other investigators.
Conclusion: The anatomical substrate for conduction over dual pathways may be too subtle to be detected by gross morphologic studies. Since dual pathways were unmasked in all patients but one during electrophysiologic studies, it may be that the potential for these pathways is ubiquitous.