Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is a type of cardiac arrhythmia or heart rhythm disorder. VT causes abnormally fast beating of heart.
Symptoms:
Symptoms:
- Feeling of palpitation inside chest
- Lightheadedness
- Dizziness
- Loss of consciousness
- even sudden death
Conditions increasing the risk of VT
- Any previous history of Myocardial infarction (Heart attack), Coronary artery disease
- Reduced pumping function of heart (reduced ejection fraction)
- Many Congenital heart diseases (with or without surgery)
- Cardiomyopathies (Diseases of heart muscles)
- Some electrical diseases of heart like Long QT syndrome, Brugada syndrome. These diseases usually have family history of sudden cardiac death.
(By W.G. de Voogt, MD, PhD, SLAZ, The Netherlands - W.G. de Voogt, MD, PhD, SLAZ, The Netherlands, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24366354)
- ECG - ECG gives the diagnosis of VT. (shown above)
- In some cases where ECG is not available, but cardiac arrhythmia is suspected, other modalities like - Holter monitoring, Event recorders, Electrophysiological study - are done.
Management:
- Acute management: When a patient presents to the emergency dept. with ongoing VT, electrical cardioversion (shock) is usually done. In some cases when the patient is hemodynamically stable treatment with medications can be tried.
- Long term management: include
- Medications
- Catheter ablation of VT - It is a safe and effective method for management of VT. Catheter ablation is curative in some cases. In some cases recurrence of VT can occur, where repeat ablation can be done.
- ICD (Implantable cardioverter defibrillator) : Is highly effective in preventing sudden death in patients with history of VT or reduced ejection capacity of heart (EF<35%).
