Interactions between paced wavefronts and monomorphic ventricular tachycardia: implications for antitachycardia pacing.

OBJECTIVES

Interactions between paced wavefronts and monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT) dictate antitachycardia pacing outcomes. We used optical mapping to assess those interactions during single and dual site pacing of rabbit ventricular epicardium.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Monomorphic VTs were initiated in six isolated rabbit hearts that were endocardially cryoablated to limit viable tissue to visible epicardium and establish apical tissue as the anatomic anchor. Preparations were optically mapped during single (n = 39) and dual (n = 43) site pacing at 50%-90% of VT cycle length (CL) with eight pulses per trial. Overall, we found six pulses that abruptly terminated VT. This occurred because the VT wavefront collided with the antidromic portion of the paced wavefront and the orthodromic portion of paced wavefront blocked in the VT's refractory region. When effective, dual site pacing that captured tissue at both leads simultaneously terminated the VT immediately, while single site pacing or dual site pacing that captured tissue at only one lead terminated the VT after resetting advanced the orthodromic wavefront. We found 12 pulses that induced polymorphic VT, with 11 of those pulses occurring during capture at only one lead. Expansion of the combined antidromic-VT wavefront around one or both ends of the arc of conduction block formed by the interaction of the orthodromic wavefront with the VT's refractory region initiated functional reentry. Six of these polymorphic VTs were nonsustained because the underlying wavefronts self-terminated. The wavefronts did persist for 4.2 +/- 3.5 cycles before self-terminating in these trials, and the post-pacing cycles presented a 146% increase in CL variability, compared with the variability prior to pacing. These temporal characteristics are similar to those of delayed termination in patients with ICDs.

CONCLUSIONS

The main difference between pulses that terminated abruptly and pulses that induced polymorphic VT was the effective separation of the antidromic and orthodromic portions of the paced wavefront from one another.