Ventricular tachycardia is a sometimes very dangerous arrhythmia characterized by an accelerated heartbeat (tachycardia) and an electrical impulse that originates in one of the ventricles instead of the sinus node. The electrical signal does not pass through the conduction system so the heart cannot contract normally. The faster the heart contracts, the less blood it can expel with each beat and has little time to fill with blood between beats. If this tachycardia continues, the brain and the entire body do not receive enough blood and oxygen, which can cause fainting, collapse, fainting, and unconsciousness. Furthermore, if it continues for a long time, cardiac arrest can occur. Ventricular tachycardia is an arrhythmia that usually occurs in hearts with structural diseases (sick hearts), such as ischemic heart disease, dilated cardiomyopathy, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. In some cases, ventricular tachycardia occurs in a completely “healthy” heart, that is, without any recognizable pathologies. These tachycardias, called idiopathic ventricular tachycardias, generally originate from typical locations, such as the right and left outflow tract, the coronary cusps, the papillary muscles, the valve rings. Idiopathic ventricular tachycardias can be treated in a large majority of cases with transcatheter ablation.

Ventricular tachycardia can be interrupted by drugs or an electric shock, sometimes it can go away without any treatment. Sometimes the only therapy is to combine drug therapy with an implantable defibrillator, other times transcatheter ablation is indicated with or without the implantation of an automatic defibrillator. The arrhythmologist carefully evaluates the heart pathologies to establish the most appropriate therapy (drug, ablation or implantable defibrillator) for the control and prevention of the arrhythmia.

To diagnose these pathologies, the arrhythmologist uses different tests depending on the case: electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, 12-lead cardiac Holter, stress test, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, coronary angiography.