[Prognosis and follow-up of patients with ventricular tachycardias or ventricular fibrillation without coronary heart disease].

We studied the follow-up of 49 patients (pts), mean age 34 +/- 9 years, without coronary artery disease who had sustained (duration greater than 30 s) monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (smvt) (n = 42) or ventricular fibrillation (vf) (n = 7). There were 9/49 pts (18%) with smvt who had right ventricular dysplasia (RVD) and 32/49 pts (65%) without structural heart disease ("idiopathic" ventricular arrhythmia) (26/32 pts with smvt and 6/32 pts with vf). There were 6/49 pts (12%) with congestive (COCM) and 2/49 pts (4%) with hypertrophic (HOCM) cardiomyopathy. Mean follow-up was 49 +/- 13 months. During the follow-up 1/9 pts (11%) with RVD died postoperatively from heart failure, 1/26 pts (4%) with idiopathic smvt from cancer and 2/6 pts (33%) with COCM from heart failure. There were no deaths in pts with idiopathic vf. Recurrent smvt occurred in 5/9 pts (56%) with RVD, in 10/26 pts (39%) with idiopathic smvt, in 2/6 pts (33%) with idiopathic vf, in 3/6 pts (50%) with COCM and in 1/2 pts (50%) with HOCM. Our data show that pts with smvt or vf without coronary artery disease have a good prognosis. However, there is a high incidence of recurrent ventricular arrhythmia in these patients.