Systemic sclerosis (SS) is a connective tissue disease and cardiac involvement is common. Primary cardiac involvement such as conduction system disturbances and arrhythmias can also occur. However, reports of sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) are rare. We report a case of catheter ablation of sustained ventricular tachycardia in a patient with systemic sclerosis using a conventional mapping system. A 64-yr-old woman with a 10-yr history of SS was referred for management of her ventricular tachycardia. There was no structural abnormality in cardiac chambers. However, electrophysiologic study revealed electrical substrate of ventricular tachycardia which could be ablated with pacemapping and substrate mapping. This case demonstrated successful conventional mapping and catheter ablation in a hemodynamically unstable patient with SS.
*Catheter Ablation ; Electrocardiography ; Female ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Scleroderma, Systemic/*complications/*diagnosis ; Tachycardia, Ventricular/*etiology/physiopathology/*surgery

To investigate an association between surface electrocardiographic (ECG) parameters and sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) in children after repair of congenital heart disease (CHD), data were obtained and analyzed in three groups (group I, 7 postoperative patients with episode of sustained VT (4 tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), 2 double outlet right ventricle (DORV), 1 truncus arteriosus); group II, 14 children with postoperative TOF not associated with VT; group III, 14 normal children). Mean age at the onset of sustained VT was 129+/-77 months (range 60-232); mean age at corrective surgery, 44+/-33 months (range 10-102); mean follow-up period after surgery, 84+/-74 months (range 20-185); the duration from repair to the onset of sustained VT, range 1-185 months. Compared to group II and III, group I showed longer QRS duration (group I, 137+/-10 msec; group II, 114+/-22 msec; group III, 65+/-12 msec) and shorter corrected J to Tmax interval (group I, 209+/-24 msec; group II, 272+/-44 msec; group III, 249+/-18 msec). QT and corrected QT, J to Tmax interval, and their dispersions in group I and II are significantly different from those of group III. In conclusion, QRS duration and corrected J to Tmax interval could be helpful to predict ventricular tachycardia in postoperative CHD.
Adolescence ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Electrocardiography ; Female ; Heart Defects, Congenital/surgery* ; Heart Defects, Congenital/physiopathology ; Human ; Infant ; Male ; Tachycardia, Ventricular/etiology*