Late Potentials and Ablation Index in Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation

There is an increasing evidence regarding the efficacy of a substrate-based ablation approach to ventricular tachycardia (VT). This approach involves identifying regions of scar and also areas displaying late potentials and fractionated activity. Automated mapping systems are now available which may be able to generate high density maps displaying regions containing both late potentials and ventricular scar. Such an automated approach has not been validated. Furthermore, most patients presenting for VT ablation have pacing devices in situ. It is not known how the pacing modality affect the substrate maps generated for these procedures. Once an area felt to be important to ablate has been identified, the next key step is to perform effective ablation. An algorithm has now been made available (Ablation index - Biosense Webster Inc.,) which in preclinical studies is an effective predictor of radiofrequency lesion depth. This algorithm has been studied extensively in the atrium but not in the ventricle. This study would also seek to collect ablation index data during ablation to assess the algorithm during ventricular ablation.