Imaging-Aided VT Ablation. Long-Term Results From a Pilot Study.

Summary: Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is a dangerously fast heartbeat that can happen after a heart attack. Doctors usually treat it by using a procedure called ablation, which carefully burns tiny spots in the heart to block the bad electrical signals. In this study, doctors used 3D CT scans of the heart to find the exact spots to treat before the procedure even started. They looked for areas where the heart muscle wall was uneven. They tested this on 39 patients. By using the CT scans as a map, they successfully stopped the fast heartbeats in most patients. After about four years, over 60% of the patients were still free from these dangerous heartbeats. This shows that using CT scans is a safe and helpful way to guide heart treatments.