Modern concepts of ventricular tachycardia. The value of electrocardiological investigations and delayed potentials in ventricular tachycardia of ischemic and nonischemic etiology (31 operated cases).

Concepts on ventricular tachycardia (VT) have markedly changed in the last 10 yr, with the help of sophisticated electrophysiological methods of study. The importance of the reentry phenomenon in the mechanism of the arrhythmias has been pointed out by stimulation procedures. Epicardial mapping allowed the localization of the abnormal zone where delayed impulses could allow reentry. Surgical techniques have been developed from these observations, to prevent reentrant VT in some refractory cases.