Osborn wave



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Overview
Osborn waves (also known as camel-hump sign, late delta wave, hathook junction, hypothermic wave, J point wave, K wave, H wave or current of injury) are usually observed on the electrocardiogram of people suffering from hypothermia, though they may also occur in people with high blood levels of calcium (hypercalcemia), brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, damage to sympathetic nerves in the neck, and cardiopulmonary arrest from over sedation, vasospastic angina, or ventricular fibrillation.

Osborn waves are positive deflections occurring at the junction between the QRS complex and the ST segment, where the S point, also known as the J joint, has a myocardial infarction-like elevation.

All J wave deflections do not look alike. Some are merely elevations of ST segments in leads V1 and V2, whereas others are of the spike-and-dome variety. This leads to the conclusion that different mechanisms may be responsible for the size and shape of J wave deflections.

Historical background
The prominent J deflection attributed to hypothermia was first reported in 1938 by Tomaszewski. The wave was observed by others, including Kossmann, Grosse-Brockhoff and Schoedel, Bigelow et al, Juvenelle et al, and Osborn.

Over the years, the unusual wave increasingly has been called an Osborn wave, probably because of Osborn's excellent descriptive article written in 1953. Clinicians labeled the deflection an Osborn wave in honor of Osborn, one of the first American Heart Association research fellows.

Additional resources

 * ECGpedia: Course for interpretation of ECG
 * The whole ECG - A basic ECG primer
 * 12-lead ECG library
 * Simulation tool to demonstrate and study the relation between the electric activity of the heart and the ECG
 * ECG information from Children's Hospital Heart Center, Seattle
 * ECG Challenge from the ACC D2B Initiative
 * National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Diseases and Conditions Index
 * A history of electrocardiography
 * EKG Interpretations in infants and children