Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the long-term prognosis of ventricular tachycardia (VT) mainly with respect to sudden death (SCD) in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD), idiopathic cardiomyopathy (ICM), miscellaneous heart disease (MHD) and idiopathic ventricular tachycardia (IVT). The study included 117 patients with VT (80 male, 37 female). The number of patients with IHD, ICM, MHD and IVT was 14/40 (35%), 4/17 (24%), 6/25 (24%) and zero (0%), respectively. The other having had syncope in IHD, ICM, MHD and IVT was 19/40 (48%), 7/18 (39%), 6/26% (23%) and 6/33 (18%), respectively. Out of the 19 IHD patients with syncope, 15 had had ventricular fibrillation (VF), which was induced by a disopyramide injection. In IVT, the patients with syncope had a significantly higher VT rate than those without syncope (p < 0.01). There were no significantly differences in the electrocardiographical high risk parameters for SCD, the age, follow-up periods, the presence or absence of VF and ejection fraction between the SCD and the surviving groups. Consequently, it is suggested that IVT is not related to SCD but careful attention should be paid to syncope when the rapid VT rate is observed although VT with organic heart disease is closely related both to SCD and syncope. In addition, it is considered that the above electrocardiographical parameters and so on were not always independent predictors of SCD among the patients having VT.
