Stellate Ganglion Blockade for the Treatment of Refractory Ventricular Arrhythmias

This study sought to describe our institutional experience with establishing a neurocardiology service in an attempt to provide autonomic modulation as a treatment for ventricular arrhythmias (VAs).

Treatment-refractory VAs are commonly driven and exacerbated by heightened sympathetic tone.

Among patients referred to the neurocardiology service (August 2016 to December 2018), we performed ultrasound-based, bilateral, temporary stellate ganglion blockade (SGB) in 20 consecutive patients. We analyzed outcomes of interest including sustained VA or VA requiring defibrillation in the 24 and 48 h before and 24 and 48 h after SGB.

The majority of patients were men (n = 19, 95%), with a mean age of 58 ± 14 years. At the time of SGB, 10 (50%) were on inotropic support and 9 (45%) were on mechanical circulatory support. Besides 1 case of hoarseness, there were no apparent procedural complications. SGB was associated with a reduction in the number of VA episodes from the 24 h before (median 5.5 [interquartile range (IQR): 2.0 to 15.8]) to 24 h after SGB (median 0 [IQR: 0 to 3.8]) (p < 0.001). The number of defibrillation events decreased from 2.5 (IQR: 0 to 10.3) to 0 (IQR: 0 to 2.5) (p = 0.002). Similar findings were observed over the 48-h period before and after the SGB. Overall, 9 of 20 (45%) patients had a complete response with no recurrence of ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) for 48 h after SGB. Four (20%) patients had no recurrent VT or VF following SGB through discharge. Similar response rates were observed in those with ischemic (median 6 [IQR: 1.8 to 18.8] to 0.5 [IQR: 0 to 5.3] events; p = 0.031) and nonischemic (median 3.5 [IQR: 1.8 to 6.8] to 0 [IQR: 0 to 1.3] events; p = 0.012) cardiomyopathy.

Minimally invasive, ultrasound-guided bilateral SGB appears safe and provides substantial reduction in VA burden with approximately 1 in 2 patients exhibiting complete suppression of VT or VF for 48 h.