Despite improvements in 3D mapping, percutaneous catheter ablation for ventricular tachycardia remains challenging with long procedure times, significant complication rates, and moderate success rates.
Percutaneous catheter ablation for ventricular tachycardia (VT) in structural heart disease is an important adjunctive treatment option to reduce overall VT burden and recurrence, ICD shocks and hospitalization by eliminating or excluding the arrhythmogenic substrate.1 Yet, despite encouraging results with a trend towards improved survival in registry data following VT ablation2 as well as improvements in preprocedural substrate characterization and high density electro-anatomical 3D mapping, procedure times remain comparatively long, complication rates significant and success rates for certain VT subtypes are, at best, moderate.
Tonko et al. (Thu,) conducted a editorial in Ventricular tachycardia in structural heart disease. Rapid high-density contact mapping using a novel star-shaped multipolar catheter was evaluated. Despite improvements in 3D mapping, percutaneous catheter ablation for ventricular tachycardia remains challenging with long procedure times, significant complication rates, and moderate success rates.