Ventricular tachycardia
Also known as: sudden cardiac death prevention · ventricular arrhythmia · VT
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2017 AHA/ACC/HRS Guideline for Management of Patients With Ventricular Arrhythmias and the Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death
AHA/ACC/HRS · 2017
Ventricular tachycardia in adults is covered by this broader US guideline on ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death prevention, which addresses evaluation, acute and chronic management, catheter ablation, antiarrhythmic drug therapy and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator indications across the underlying diseases and syndromes that predispose to VT. It remains the current US document as of 2026. Metadata record only.
- Issued in 2017 by the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and Heart Rhythm Society. source
- Supersedes the 2006 ACC/AHA/ESC guideline on ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. source
- Covers adults with ventricular arrhythmias or at risk of sudden cardiac death, including indications for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. source
2022 ESC Guidelines for the management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death
European Society of Cardiology (ESC) · 2022
The European guidance on ventricular tachycardia sits inside this broader 2022 ESC guideline on ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death prevention. It covers diagnostic evaluation, risk stratification, genetic and imaging assessment, and therapeutic strategies including ablation, drugs and defibrillator therapy, across ischaemic and non-ischaemic substrates. Metadata record only.
- Published in the European Heart Journal in October 2022 and endorsed by the Association for European Paediatric and Congenital Cardiology. source
- Updates the 2015 ESC guideline on the same topic. source
- Revision was driven by new evidence on genetics, imaging and clinical risk stratification, plus advances in diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. source
US vs EU key differences
- Version currency differs sharply: the US guideline dates to 2017, while the European guideline was rewritten in 2022 and incorporates a decade of newer imaging and genetic evidence. source
- Risk stratification has moved beyond ejection fraction in Europe: the 2022 ESC guideline supports ICD implantation in dilated cardiomyopathy with LVEF between 35% and 50% when risk markers such as LMNA, PLN, FLNC or RBM20 variants, unexplained syncope or late gadolinium enhancement co-exist, whereas the 2017 US guideline remains largely LVEF-driven. source
- Cardiac MRI and genetics are graded far more strongly in the European document: CMR is Class I for cardiac arrest survivors without a clear cause and for suspected ARVC or HCM, and post-mortem genetic testing is Class I for sudden death victims under age 50. source
- Catheter ablation sits higher in the European hierarchy: the 2022 ESC guideline makes ablation Class I first-line therapy for idiopathic outflow-tract and fascicular VT, and Class IIa for haemodynamically tolerated VT in stable coronary disease. source
What changed recently
- EU2015 → 20222022-08-26
Updating the 2015 ESC guideline, the 2022 version gives catheter ablation a larger role, including in patients without structural heart disease and in stable coronary disease with only mildly reduced ejection fraction, and moves risk stratification beyond ejection fraction alone by adopting disease-specific risk calculators for laminopathy and long QT syndrome alongside the existing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy score.
source ↗curation confidence 90% - US2006 → 20172017-10-30
The 2017 guideline replaces the 2006 ACC/AHA/ESC ventricular arrhythmia guideline, and also supersedes the ICD indication sections of the 2008 device-based therapy guideline and updates the sudden-death prevention advice in the 2011 hypertrophic cardiomyopathy guideline, consolidating ventricular arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death management in one document.
source ↗curation confidence 90%
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