Ventricular tachycardia surgery

There has been significant progress in the surgical treatment of ventricular tachycardia during the past decade. Reasons for this include the introduction of intraoperative mapping, the use of surgical ablative techniques directed specifically at the arrhythmogenic substrate, and a better understanding of which patients will benefit from the procedure. Surgery can now be performed in selected patients with a perioperative mortality rate of < 5% and a surgical success rate (i.e., no spontaneous or inducible ventricular tachycardia postoperatively) exceeding 90%. Further refinements in intraoperative mapping and ablative techniques will hopefully improve surgical results in coronary disease patients with less favorable anatomy and in other cardiac diagnosis.