New directions in surgical therapy of arrhythmias.

The success of the radiofrequency catheter ablation procedure for most types of supraventricular and ventricular tachycardia, particularly in young patients, largely eliminated the role of surgical therapy of arrhythmias. However, there remains a subset of arrhythmia patients in whom the catheter approach has not been successful and types of arrhythmias with high recurrence rates following initially successful catheter ablation procedures where surgery can provide more definitive therapy. In addition, the concepts of ablation therapy can be successfully incorporated into the concomitant repair of complex congenital heart disease, resulting in single-stage therapy for structural and rhythm abnormalities. Prospectively, knowledge of the role of anatomic barriers as substrates for future reentrant arrhythmia circuits provides the opportunity to alter these circuits prophylactically at the time of initial surgical repair of congenital heart disease in an attempt to avoid the late development of tachycardia. This article describes our experience during the past decade with 71 patients undergoing arrhythmia surgery using this approach.