Does catheter ablation reduce the composite of death, ventricular tachycardia storm, or appropriate ICD shock in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and an ICD who have ventricular tachycardia despite antiarrhythmic drug therapy?
In patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and refractory ventricular tachycardia, catheter ablation is superior to escalating antiarrhythmic drugs in reducing the composite of death, VT storm, or appropriate ICD shocks.
In patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and an ICD who had ventricular tachycardia despite antiarrhythmic drug therapy, there was a significantly lower rate of the composite primary outcome of death, ventricular tachycardia storm, or appropriate ICD shock among patients undergoing catheter ablation than among those receiving an escalation in antiarrhythmic drug therapy. (Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and others; VANISH ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00905853.).
Sapp et al. (2016) studied this question.