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Twenty-four hour continuous ECG monitoring was performed on 20 patients hospitalized for asthma to evaluate the occurrence of potentially dangerous arrhythmias. Most patients (19/20) had sinus tachycardia on admission; premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) were present in 4; 1 had angina associated with runs of increased sinus tachycardia. With improvement in PaO2 and FEV1, the heart rate decreased in 17 patients and fewer PVCs were present in 2. Arrhythmias were not a serious problem in the patients studied.
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