High-rate pacing guided by short-term variability of repolarization prevents imminent ventricular arrhythmias automatically by an internal cardioverter-defibrillator in the chronic atrioventricular block dog model

The anesthetized, complete chronic atrioventricular block (CAVB) dog model allows reproducible inducibility of torsades de pointes (TdP) arrhythmias due to ventricular remodeling and after a challenge with an IKr blocker. High-rate pacing (HRP) prevents ventricular arrhythmias but has long-term detrimental effects on cardiac function when applied continuously. Temporal dispersion of repolarization, quantified as short-term variability (STV), increases before ventricular arrhythmias and has been proposed as a marker to guide HRP.
Source: Heart Rhythm - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: research