Program Objectives

1. Provide a review of new information on the basic pathophysiology of ventricular arrhythmias.
2. Provide an in-depth understanding of current management strategies used for the care of ventricular arrhythmias in various disease states, including non-pharmacological therapies such as implantable device and catheter ablation techniques.

At the conclusion of this symposium, participants should be able to:

• Describe the science critical to the understanding and treatment of ventricular arrhythmias including:       
  • Biophysics of ablation
  • Anatomic substrate for ventricular tachycardia (VT)
• Review the current status and future role for implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) in the management of sudden cardiac death
• Discuss the role of new techniques for VT substrate assessment including functional scar imaging, intra-procedure MRI, and high density mapping
• Describe risk stratification and treatment including VT ablation in patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy
• Explain strategies to improve treatment outcome in patients with ventricular arrhythmias and structural heart disease including “bail out” strategies after failed catheter ablation
• Review the current use/role of antiarrhythmic drug therapy for ventricular arrhythmias
• Describe and manage complications of VT ablation
• Identify techniques to improve ablation success for idiopathic arrhythmias including use of advanced imaging
• Describe the status of ongoing multicenter VT-related trials and discuss which questions need to be answered by trials in the future