Ventricular Tachycardia Management

Ventricular tachycardia is a potentially life threatening cardiac arrhythmia. If the rate is very fast, hemodynamic deterioration can occur rapidly. On the ECG, ventricular tachycardia can be defined as three or more ventricular ectopic beats occurring in a sequence at a rate more than 100 per minute. Ventricular tachycardia which gets spontaneously terminated within 30 seconds is called non sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) . Sustained ventricular tachycardia is one which does not get spontaneously terminated within 30 seconds or needs cardioversion before that due to hemodynamic compromise. Based on the morphology, ventricular tachycardia can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic ventricular tachycardias. Monomorphic VT is usually due to reentrant circuits within the myocardial conduction tissue, while polymorphic VT is due to early afterdepolarizations. Classical example of polymorphic ventricular tachycardia is torsade de pointes associated with congenital or acquired QT interval prolongation. Another rare form of ventricular tachycardia is bidirectional ventricular tachycardia. Monomorphic ventricular tachycardia is usually treated with an amiodarone bolus dose followed by infusion. Monomorphic ventricular tachycardia in the setting of acute myocardial ischemia can also be treated by intravenous lignocaine bolus followed by infusion. Predisposing causes for ventricular tachycardia like ischemia and electrolyte imbalance has to be treated simultaneously to...
Source: Cardiophile MD - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs