Association of Sinus Wavefront Activation and Ventricular Extrastimuli Mapping With Ventricular Tachycardia...

Substrate-based ablation targets areas of delayed and fractionated electrograms during sinus rhythm, which are sensitive for identifying the ventricular tachycardia (VT) isthmus but is influenced by the activation wavefront direction and decremental pacing.

The aim of this study was to correlate the areas of latest activation during varying wavefront activation mapping and decremental pacing mapping with sites critical to the VT isthmus.

Three high-density electroanatomical substrate maps were created in patients presenting for ablation of monomorphic VT: 1) native sinus rhythm; 2) right ventricular (RV) apical pacing; and 3) an RV apical S2 map following the S1 drive train at 20 ms above the ventricular effective refractory period. Areas corresponding to the latest activation were compared with the VT isthmus identified by conventional mapping.

Twenty patients with structural heart disease with a mean age of 55.6 ± 16.9 years were included. The majority of the cohort consisted of patients with ischemic heart disease (50%) and arrhythmogenic RV cardiomyopathy (35%). Epicardial ablation was performed in 45% of patients. The concordance of the site of latest activation in sinus rhythm with the VT isthmus was 75%. The location of the latest activation during RV apical pacing corresponded with the VT isthmus in 85% of cases. However, in 95% of cases, the site of the latest activation following the S2 stimulus colocalized to the VT isthmus.

In a mix of underlying myocardial substrates, regions of conduction slowing during decremental pacing colocalize with the VT isthmus more frequently than sinus rhythm activation mapping and may have a role in substrate-based ablation where VT induction is undesirable.