Catheter Ablation or Antiarrhythmic Drugs for Ventricular Tachycardia

Patients with ventricular tachycardia and ischemic cardiomyopathy are at high risk for adverse outcomes. Catheter ablation is commonly used when antiarrhythmic drugs do not suppress ventricular tachycardia. Whether catheter ablation is more effective than antiarrhythmic drugs as a first-line therapy in patients with ventricular tachycardia is uncertain.

In an international trial, we randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio patients with previous myocardial infarction and clinically significant ventricular tachycardia (defined as ventricular tachycardia storm, receipt of appropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator [ICD] shock or antitachycardia pacing, or sustained ventricular tachycardia terminated by emergency treatment) to receive antiarrhythmic drug therapy or to undergo catheter ablation. All the patients had an ICD. Catheter ablation was performed within 14 days after randomization; sotalol or amiodarone was administered as antiarrhythmic drug therapy according to prespecified criteria. The primary end point was a composite of death from any cause during follow-up or, more than 14 days after randomization, ventricular tachycardia storm, appropriate ICD shock, or sustained ventricular tachycardia treated by medical intervention.

A total of 416 patients were followed for a median of 4.3 years. A primary end-point event occurred in 103 of 203 patients (50.7%) assigned to catheter ablation and in 129 of 213 (60.6%) assigned to drug therapy (hazard ratio, 0.75; 95% confidence interval, 0.58 to 0.97; P = 0.03). Among patients in the catheter ablation group, adverse events within 30 days after the procedure included death in 2 patients (1.0%) and nonfatal adverse events in 23 patients (11.3%). Among the patients assigned to drug therapy, adverse events that were attributed to antiarrhythmic drug treatment included death from pulmonary toxic effects in 1 patient (0.5%) and nonfatal adverse events in 46 patients (21.6%).

Among patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and ventricular tachycardia, an initial strategy of catheter ablation led to a lower risk of a composite primary end-point event than antiarrhythmic drug therapy. (Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and others; VANISH2 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02830360.).