LONDON, SATURDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 1979 BRITISH Br Med J: first published as 10.1136/bmj.2.6190.561 on 8 September 1979. Downloaded from MEDICAL JOURNAl ai Chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia Chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia is always a serious In other cases the initiating ventricular beat occurs after full arrhythmia since it may deteriorate into fatal ventricular inscription of the T wave of the preceding sinus beat, and the fibrillation. Chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia at a complexes vary in form from beat to beat. One type is known rate of 250 beats/minute may cause syncope, but at a rate of as Torsades de Pointe because of progressive and cyclical 100-150 may not cause any symptoms. Often, but not always, twisting in the electrical axis of each complex. This form of a signal to serious underlying heart disease, the arrhythmia ventricular tachycardia is often self-terminating, but also may recur or may disappear as mysteriously as it came. particularly likely to deteriorate into ventricular fibrillation. Treatment usually demands long-term drugs, and control may It may occur as a complication of drugs that prolong re- prove difficult. polarisation, or may signify a metabolic abnormality, par- Chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia may complicate ticularly potassium and magnesium deficiency.' A prolonged ischaemic heart disease and almost any heart-muscle disease. QT interval is familial in the cardioauditory syndrome of It is more likely when the QT interval is prolonged, when Jervell and Lange-Nielson in which ventricular tachycardia both recurrence and conversion to ventricular fibrillation may or ventricular fibrillation may occur.2 This condition may be be encouraged by quinidine-like antiarrhythmic drugs that perplexing because the QT prolongation is not always present http://www.bmj.com/ further prolong repolarisation. Chronic recurrent ventricular on the ECG, though it may often be recorded after exercise. tachycardia seems to have become more common-possibly as Emergency treatment of ventricular tachycardia is usually a result of increased survival of patients after myocardial by intravenous lignocaine, but DC counter shock is often infarction. required. Lignocaine should be avoided when the arrhythmia Chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia may be the first complicates a prolonged QT interval. In such cases the heart sign ofheart disease. The symptoms depend on the ventricular rate should be accelerated by isoprenaline or temporary pacing. rate and the underlying cardiac disorder, patients complaining The aim, often impossible, is to identify and correct any of blackouts, angina, or palpitations, but they are often un- underlying cardiac fault. Serum potassium concentrations on 26 September 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. aware of any change in heart rate. Repeated Holter ECG tape should be measured and then kept as close as possible to recording may help to detect the arrhythmia in patients with 5 mmol(mEq)/l. Treatment must be continued with anti- fainting attacks or other poorly defined symptoms; monitoring arrhythmic drugs, whose initial selection is usually empirical. is also valuable in assessing the response to treatment. When These drugs are often only partially effective, and, reflecting chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia is associated with this, the prognosis of chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia ischaemia it tends to be provoked by tachycardia, so that is poor. Careful trials of antiarrhythmic drugs are time con- exercise or emotion may then precipitate both the arrhythmia suming, and the patient must be in hospital for his safety and and angina. In other cases the arrhythmia may occur at any to measure the response. Because of the deficiencies of drug time. Sudden, unexpected death is a feature of hypertrophic treatment, purpose-built implanted pacemakers,3 and surgical cardiomyopathy, but may be prevented if an occult ventricular excision or exclusion of arrhythmogenic foci have been tried.4 arrhythmia is detected and treated. Chronic recurrent ventri- Classically chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia complicat- cular tachycardia is also common in dilated (congestive) ing a ventricular aneurysm has been an indication for excising cardiomyopathy, when it may bring on heart failure. If this, but any ventricular scar, either visible or theoretical, may tachycardia is prolonged cardiac failure may develop even in be equally culpable. These scars can be located by ECG map- subjects without organic heart disease. ping at operation. Whether excision, encirclement, or cryo- The appearance of ventricular tachycardia on the electro- therapy is used, however, a further scar results and so re- cardiogram varies. Typically the arrhythmia starts with a pre- currences of chronic recurrent ventricular tachycardia are mature ventricular beat occurring on, or close to, the T wave possible. of the preceding sinus beat. The premature beat initiates a These difficulties have led to an aggressive and invasive self-sustaining tachycardia with uniformly wide and bizarre approach, where ventricular tachycardia is induced by elec- QRS complexes, whose initial inscription is slow, with a mean trode stimulation of the heart during catheterisation and the axis different from that of the normal complexes. effect of drugs can then be studied.5 These studies may take C BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL 1979. All reproduction rights reserved. NO 6190 PAGE 561 562 BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL 8 SEPTEMBER 1979 several days.6-9 Induction of supraventricular arrhythmia has in which patients with soft-tissue sarcomas of the arms or legs Br Med J: first published as 10.1136/bmj.2.6190.561 on 8 September 1979. Downloaded from been employed for some years to assess drug effects, but were randomised to receive either amputation or a limb- electrophysiological studies of ventricular tachycardia have sparing operation and postoperative radiotherapy. All patients hitherto been less informative. Moreover, the deliberate in- received adjuvant chemotherapy (adriamycin, cyclophospha- duction ofa potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmia is a frightening mide, and methotrexate). So far local recurrence has been procedure. To induce these arrhythmias multiple multipolar reported in only one ofthe 16 patients treated by limb-sparing electrode catheters are positioned in the heart (usually through surgery and radiotherapy, and there have been no local the femoral veins) for the delivery, by programmed electrical recurrences in the group treated with amputation (10 patients). stimulation, ofsingle or multiple extra stimuli to chosen points Comparison of the results in all 49 patients in the study (with at predetermined phases of the cardiac cycle. It is usually limb, trunk, and head and neck lesions) with historical controls possible to induce ventricular tachycardia similar in morpho- treated with radical surgery alone shows improvements in both logy and rate to the spontaneously occurring arrhythmia, and disease-free survival and overall survival. So far too few patients then to terminate it by similar means. Techniques for inducing have relapsed to distinguish between the two randomised ventricular tachycardia include rapid atrial or ventricular pacing, subgroups. bursts ofextra stimuli, and combinations ofthese. The arrhyth- Morton et al5 used a regimen which included radiotherapy mia is usually terminated by a single or short burst of extra and intra-arterial adriamycin (without proximal vascular stimuli, or by ventricular or atrial overdrive at rapid rates. compression) with local resection. Postoperatively some Thus the mechanism and origin of ventricular tachycardia can patients also received chemotherapy, with or without immuno- be characterised, and serial electrophysiological studies per- therapy. Of the 17 patients treated with surgery alone, 11 formed after giving drugs. Patients selected for the prolonged have had local recurrence and required amputation. None of studies have usually been refractory to medical treatment. the five who had postoperative radiotherapy have had local Though induction of ventricular arrhythmias is still con- recurrences. Of the eight patients who received preoperative tentious, and possible only in specialist units, the speedier intra-arterial adriamycin, five had shrinkage of tumour, but formulation of an optimum drug regimen for the individual by the limb was salvaged in only one patient. Thirteen of 14 these means would represent an important advance. patients treated with intra-arterial adriamycin and radiotherapy had sufficient shrinkage of the tumour to allow local resection. IKrikler, D M, and Curry, P V L, British Heart Journal, 1976, 38, 117. this 2 Jervell, A, and Lange-Nielsen, F, American Heart Journal, 1957, 54, 59. All patients treated with combined approach have 3Moss, A J, and Rivers, R J, Circulation, 1974, 50, 942. remained free of local or distant recurrence for four to 34 4 Spurrell, R A J, et al, British Heart Journal, 1975, 37, 115. months. When these preliminary results are compared with 5 Wellens, H J J, Lie, K I, and Durrer, D, Circulation, 1974, 49, 647. 6 Mason, J W, and Winkle, R A, Circulation, 1978, 58, 971. those achieved in the unrandomised group of 17 patients 7Horowitz, L N, et al, Circulation, 1978, 58, 986. managed by surgery alone, the combined modality approach 8 Scheinman, M M, Circulation, 1978, 58, 998. seems superior. 9 Fisher, J D, Circulation, 1978, 58, 1000. Karakousis et a18 have recently reported the results of concomitant radiotherapy