The First Case of Epicardial Ablation of Ventricular Tach-Ycardia in a Patient With Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathy in Our Country

Abstract

Since 2012 we have successfully implemented endocardial ablation procedures in patients with structural heart disease and ventricular arrhythmias. These are complex electrophysiological procedures that are used to treat electric storms or repetitive discharges of cardioverter-defibrillators. However, in one part of the patients endocardial ablation is unsuccessful, since the key substrate of arrhythmia is subepicardial. We report a 20-year-old patient who has survived out-of-hospital arrest, caused by ventricular fibrillation (VF) in the setting of myocarditis. Extensive cardiac work-up did not show any pathology, however cardiac magnetic resonance found subepicardial scarring zones in the left ventricle as the primary cause of arrhythmia. The patient was implanted with a cardioverter-defibrillator, but in spite of several lines of antiarrhythmic therapy there were still frequent recurrent VFs. Therefore, a combined percutaneous endo/epi procedure was performed, after which the patient had no recurrence of arrhythmia. Due to the great complexity of epicardial ablation, so far these patients have been refered to colleagues in foreign centers, which is no longer the case.