Ablation of Ventricular Tachycardia in Patients with Ischemic Cardiomyopathy

Abstract

Ventricular tachycardias (VTs) occurring after prior myocardial infarction are usually caused by reentrant circuits formed by surviving myocardial bundles. Although part of the reentrant circuits may be located in the midmyocardium or epicardium, most of the VTs can be safely and successfully ablated by endocardial ablation targeting the late potentials/local abnormal ventricular activation, which are surrogates for the surviving myocardial bundles. A combination of activation, substrate, pace, and entrainment mapping, as well as the use of contact force catheters, further improves ablation success and safety.

Keywords: Ablation; Ischemic cardiomyopathy; Ventricular arrhythmia; Ventricular tachycardia.