Endocardial Surgery for Ventricular Tachycardia: The Inside Story

Excerpt

Recurrent ventricular tachycardia from ventricular aneurysm or scars has been reported more frequently in recent years. This rising frequency probably reflects a growing number of patients who have survived coronary accidents because of improved out-of-hospital resuscitation from sudden death, better drug treatment of infarcts, and surgery for angina. But their ventricular tachycardias are difficult to treat; drugs often do not prevent recurrence (1-3).

As will be reviewed by Horowitz and colleagues (4) in a subsequent issue of this journal, routine coronary artery bypass and aneurysmectomy has failed to prevent recurrence of ventricular tachycardia more often than not. These failures probably