Peri-Procedural Transmural Electrophysiological (EP) Imaging of Scar-Related Ventricular Tachycardia

Overview

Ventricular tachycardia (VT) contributes to over 350,000 sudden deaths each year in the US. Malignant VTs involve an electrical "short circuit" in the heart, formed by narrow channels of surviving tissue inside myocardial scar. An important treatment is to use catheter ablation to "block" the channel that forms the circuit. Effective ablation requires imaging guidance to visualize the VT circuit relative to scar structures in 3D. Unfortunately, with conventional catheter mapping, up to 90% of the VT circuits are too short-lived to be mapped. For the 10% "mappable" VTs, their data are only available during ablation and limited to one ventricular surface. This inadequacy of functional VT data largely limits the knowledge about scar-related VT and ablation strategies, and reduces the ability of clinicians to identify ablation targets and assess ablation outcome. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that functional VT data, integrated with CT or MRI scar data in 3D, can improve VT ablation efficacy with pre-procedural identification of ablation targets and post-procedural mechanistic elucidation of ablation failure. This research builds on the rapidly increasing clinical interest in electrocardiographic imaging (ECGi), an emerging technique that obtains cardiac electrical activity through inverse reconstructions from ECGs. The specific objective is to push the boundary of ECGi to provide - as a conjunction to intra-procedural catheter mapping - pre-ablation and post-ablation imaging of functional VT circuits integrated with 3D scar structure.

Electrocardiographic imaging (ECGi) is an emerging technique to image cardiac electrical activity through inverse reconstructions from body-surface ECGs. After 40 years of active research, the potential of ECGi as a noninvasive adjunct to catheter mapping is gaining rapid attention in the clinical community. A total of 40 consecutive post-infarction VT patients will be prospectively enrolled and recruited from those who have been referred for catheter ablation of scar-related VT. Within 7 days before the ablation procedure, these patients will undergo noninvasive cardiac CT or MRI imaging and noninvasive programmed stimulation (NIPS) study with simultaneous 120-lead body- surface ECG mapping (pre-ablation NIPS). MRI will be performed for patients with implantable defibrillators for whom it is considered safe to do so. CT imaging will be performed for those with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs) which are not MRI compatible. At the time of scheduled ablation, all patients will undergo standard catheter mapping and ablation procedure as a part of standard care. Within 7 days after the ablation procedure, the patients will undergo cardiac MRI imaging and noninvasive programmed stimulation (NIPS) with simultaneous 120-lead body-surface ECG mapping (post-ablation NIPS). For patients who cannot undergo MRI, CT imaging will not be repeated. At 6 months after the procedure, a follow-up will occur as a part of standard care where outcome data regarding the chronic success of the ablation procedure will be collected and ICD interrogation will be performed. No imaging or mapping is planned at the follow-up.