Catheter ablation for ventricular tachycardia

Abstract

Sudden cardiac death due to ventricular arrhythmias remains the most common cause of death in developed nations. Implantable cardioverter defibrillators have been shown to improve mortality in high-risk groups for ventricular tachyarrhythmias, but they are not curative, with the risk of arrhythmia recurrence remaining unaltered. It is also important to remember that ventricular tachycardia (VT) in the setting of a structurally normal heart is often not associated with an increased risk of sudden death and catheter ablation is a potentially curative procedure in this cohort. Recent advances in catheter ablation for VT have increased the efficacy in creating adequate lesions, accurate three-dimensional maps and mapping haemodynamically unstable VT, all of which have increased the utility of this modality in the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias. In this article, we review the recent advances that have fuelled renewed interest in catheter ablation of VT, its clinical utility and who should be referred.