title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Flinders Medical Centre, Cardiovascular Research Centre, Department of Cardiology, Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Discipline of Physiology, School of Molecular and Biomedical Science, University of Adelaide and School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: H S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: C B
authors.initials: CB
authors.lastname: Singleton
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alasady
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: McGavigan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017115:Catheter Ablation / Q000379:methods*; D016757:Death, Sudden, Cardiac / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D017180:Tachycardia, Ventricular / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome