Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation Complicated with Ventricular Rupture

Mohammed Al-Sadawi¹, Violeta Capric¹, Adam Budzikowski² and Samy I. McFarlane^1,

¹Department of Internal Medicine, State University of New York: Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, United States-11203

²Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, State University of New York: Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, United States-11203

Cite this paper:
Mohammed Al-Sadawi, Violeta Capric, Adam Budzikowski and Samy I. McFarlane. Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation Complicated with Ventricular Rupture. American Journal of Medical Case Reports. 2019; 7(8):176-179. doi: 10.12691/ajmcr-7-8-7

Abstract

Patients with cardiomyopathy (CM) are at increased risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD), specifically, secondary to ventricular arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF). Those that have CM are further stratified based on risk of death from ventricular arrhythmias. If determined high risk, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD), anti-arrhythmic medication or even ablation procedures are considered in order to minimize the risk of SCD. Ablation procedures have increased in number over the years, along with the recognition of high-risk CM patients. Along with the increase in number of ablation procedures, complications from such procedures have decreased in number and the ventricular arrhythmia ablation remains a relatively low-risk procedure. Here we describe a patient with known CM, specifically hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) with a relatively rare and high-risk complication, being ventricular aneurysm. HCM patients with ventricular aneurysm are often referred for ablation procedures as they are at a significantly higher risk for SCD due to arrhythmias. Our patient not only underwent an ablation procedure, but suffered from the rare complication of tamponade, which occurs on average <2% annually. Although, risk assessments exist for stratifying CM as high-risk prior to invasive procedures, risk assessments are lacking for the specific population of HCM patients with LV aneurysm, thus presenting us with an area for further research.

Keywords:
ventricular tachycardia ablation ventricular rupture cardiac tamponade

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