title: Ventricular tachycardia in post-myocardial infarction patients. Results of surgical therapy.
abstract: This report addresses the problems related to surgical treatment of post-infarction ventricular tachycardia (VT) and is based on a 5 year experience of 36 consecutive patients. In every case the arrhythmia was unresponsive to pharmacological therapy. All patients were operated on after the completion of a diagnostic protocol including preoperative endocardial, intra-operative epi-endocardial mapping, the latter performed automatically when possible. Surgical techniques were: classical Guiraudon's encircling endocardial ventriculotomy (EEV); partial EEV, endocardial resection (ER); cryoablation or a combination of these procedures. The in-hospital mortality (30 days) was 8.3% (3 patients). During the follow-up period (1-68 months), 3 patients (9%) died of cardiac but not VT related causes. Of the survivors, 92% are VT-free. We consider electrophysiologically guided surgery a safe and reliable method for the treatment of post-infarction VT and suggest its more extensive use. We stress the importance of automatic mapping in pleomorphic and non-sustained VT, and the necessity of tailoring the surgical technique to the characteristics of each case.
mesh_terms: D002304:Cardiac Pacing, Artificial; D003452:Cryosurgery; D004594:Electrophysiology; D004699:Endocardium / Q000601:surgery; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006329:Heart Conduction System / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007430:Intraoperative Care; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications*; D013610:Tachycardia / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D013997:Time Factors