Etiology, clinical profile, and 1-year outcome of patients presenting with nonischemic ventricular tachycardia: An observational study

Abstract

Background: Although ventricular tachycardia and the ventricular fibrillation occur more often in adults with coronary artery disease, These ventricular arrhythmias may appear in young people, often early and late after surgery for congential heart disease or in association with a variety of cardiac disease ,autonomic imbalance, drugs, as well as in the absence of detectable cardiac desease, when serious ventricular tachyarrhythmias occur in the young they may be misdiagnosed as aberrantly conducting supraventricular tachycardias because of their presumed infrequency. Information on clinical characteristics and outcome of patients with NIVT in our patient population is limited. Aims and Objectives: This prospective observational study was aimed at patients presenting with NIVT to our tertiary care center and to analyze their clinical features, electrocardiogram (ECG) characteristics, underlying disease, management and clinical outcome at one year of follow up. Methods: It is an observational prospective study of 50 patients who presented with nonischaemic VT (NIVT) to our tertiary care center. History , physical examination ,chest X-RAY, electrocardiogram (ECG) and echocardiography were done. Details of electrophysiological studies and radio frequency ablation were collected. Antiarrhythmic drug history was noted. Patients were followed for a period of one year for their clinical outcome and their response to different modalities of treatment was noted. clinical Events defined as death, hospitalizations, DC shocks and recurrence of disease and time to event was also noted. Results: Among the total 50 patients, 27(54%) were males and 23(46%) were females. The mean age of presentation was 31 to 40 years.Most common presenting symptom was syncope (75%). Most common etiology was found to be idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy with severe LV dysfunction (26%) followed by inflammatory cardiomyopathy (10%). post valvular replacement surgery for rheumatic heart disease , hypertrophic cardiomyopathy , idiopathic right ventricular outflow tract tachycardia were found in 6 percent of patients in each category. LBBB and RBBB morphology of VT in ECG seen in 37 and 44% of patients respectively. Immediate mortality rate was 12%, mainly seen in patients with electrolyte imbalance secondary to systemic infections and myocarditis related to covid 19 infection. Mean survival time in our study is 39.16 weeks with 95% confidence interval. Events have occurred in 30% of our patients most commonly in patients with idiopathic DCMP. Recurrent episodes of VT are more common in patients with DCMP ejection fraction less than 35 percent and also in ARVD patients after LV involvement. Conclusion: NIVT requires aggressive management to prevent mortality and morbidity.Recurrent episodes of VT can occur after disease progression in DCMP and these patients have poor prognosis. Aggressive management like cervical sympathetic denervation may be required in these patients when presented with VT storm. A comprehensive evaluation of patients with NIVT will allow recognition of underlying etiology and selection of appropriate treatment strategies like cervical sympathetic denervation ,radiofrequency ablation and AICD implantation apart from drug therapy for effective control of VT.

Keywords

• dilated cardiomyopathy with ventricular tachycardia
• long qt syndrome
• nonischemic ventricular tachycardia