SPECTRUM OF RIGHT HEART INVOLVEMENT IN PATIENTS WITH VENTRICULAR-TACHYCARDIA UNRELATED TO CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE OR LEFT-VENTRICULAR DYSFUNCTION

We studied 41 patients with clinically symptomatic ventricular tachyca rdia in the absence of coronary artery disease or left ventricular dys function to define the extent of right and left heart derangement and their relation to electrophysiologic and clinical data. Individual ech ocardiographic measurements as well as global assessment scores of the right and left heart demonstrated a wide spectrum of right heart echo cardiographic abnormalities. There was much less variation in the left heart, with the majority of patients being close to normal. There was an association between the right heart score, the clinical presentati on of arrhythmia, the response to programmed electrical stimulation, a nd the recurrence of arrhythmia (p < 0.05). Thus echocardiographic fin dings demonstrate the whole spectrum of right heart involvement in pat ients with apparent idiopathic ventricular tachycardia and can give in sight into clinical history, arrhythmia inducibility, and prognosis.