Transcatheter electrical ablation was performed in 5 patients, none of them showed clinical effectiveness for treatment of antiarrhythmic drugs, with recurrent sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT). The localization of ventricular ectopic focus mainly depended upon the results of pace mapping. Energy used for each transcatheter electrical ablation (TEA) was usually 150-250J and the total energy was 550J to 800J respectively for each patient. No recurrence of VT was ob-served in 4 cases during 19 to 41 (mean 26. 8) months of follow-up period, two of them without adminstration of drug. Sustained VT relapsed during the 4th months after ablation in one case, however, heart rate during VT was much slower than before. Our experience suggests that long-term effectiveness of TEA for treatment of drug-resist VT is inspiring.

BACKGROUND: There are some cytokines like interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha as well as neurohormones such as norepinerphrine in serum of patients with congestive heart failure. However, whether they influence the occurrence and development of congestive heart failure is uncertain.OBJECTIVE: To explore the changes and significance of interleukin-6,tumor necrosis factor-alpha and norepinerphrine in order to provide basis for assessing the severity of heart failure and its prognosis.DESIGN: A case control study.SETTING: Department of Cardiology, Shidong Hospital of Shanghai City.INTERVENTIONS: A total of 58 patients with congestive heart failure admitted to Department of Cardiology, Shidong Hospital of Shanghai City from January 2000 to October 2001 were chosen as patient group with 33 males and 25 females. According to NYHA heart function classification,there were 12 cases of level Ⅱ, 32 cases with level Ⅲ and 14 cases of level Ⅳ. Thirty healthy volunteers who took physical examination during the same time were chosen as control group with 18 males and 12 females.ELISA was used to assay the levels of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factoralpha and norepinerphrine in serum while two-dimension echocardiography was used to test the left ventricular ejection fraction in order to observe the relationship between cytokines and heart function.RESULTS: ① The levels of interleukin-6 [(367.6±78.6), (569.7±117.3)ng/L], tumor necrosis factor-alpha [(395.3±82.4), (583.1±124.8) ng/L] and norepinerphrine [(396.5±85.3),(675.9±136.2) ng/L] in patients with level Ⅰ-Ⅱ, Ⅳ heart function was remarkably higher than those of patients with level Ⅱ heart function and people in control group[(221.5±58.4), (170.2±42.7)ng/L; (205.4±59.2), (180.3±43.8) ng/L; (227.4±65.6),(163.8±41.5) ng/L] (P ＜ 0.05). Compared patients of level Ⅱ heart function with people in the control group, there was no difference on the above indicators (P ＞ 0.05).②There was highly negative correlation between interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, norepinerphrine and left ventricular ejection fraction (r=-0.63, P＜ 0.01; r=-0.54, P＜ 0.05;r=-0.58,P ＜ 0.01). The more severe the heart failure, the higher the levels of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha and norepinerphrine. There was obviously positive correlation between tumor necrosis factor-alpha and norepinerphrine as well as between interleukin-6 and norepinerphrine (r=0.57,P ＜ 0.01;r=0.51,P ＜ 0.05). The more severe the heart failure, the higher the level of interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha and that there was positive correlation between them (r=0.39, P ＜ 0.05).CONCLUSION: The tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6 levels in patients with congestive heart failure all increased, especially in patients with moderate or severe congestive heart failure, and represented negative correlation with left ventricular ejection fraction. It suggests that the levels of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha in serum can be used as indicators to assess the severity and prognosis of congestive heart failure and provide assessment basis for quantitative evaluation of rehabilitation interventions.