A multicenter study has described and validated a new strategy for guiding ablation procedures in patients with complex tachycardias. Ablation procedures use energy—usually heat or cold—to eliminate small areas of heart tissue that cause pathological cardiac arrhythmias, thereby restoring normal heart rhythm. This type of procedure is frequently used to treat ventricular tachycardias originating in areas affected by scarring after a myocardial infarction.
The study was led by researchers at Hospital Clínico San Carlos and the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares in Madrid. Also participating in the study were teams at Hospital Universitario de la Paz in Madrid, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, and Maastricht University Medical Center in The Netherlands, as well as members of the Spanish cardiovascular research network (CIBERCV). The study is published in Europace .
The new approach uses advanced methods for processing cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) images to identify the areas that maintain ventricular tachycardia in heart regions affected by postinfarction scarring. The method allows images to be processed systematically, avoiding the biases that can arise when CMR imaging parameters are selected manually. This systematic image processing increases the sensitivity for the detection of the regions responsible for these types of arrhythmia.
Moreover, the new strategy supports preoperative planning by allowing operators to accurately detect these regions b.