Abstract

BACKGROUND: Regional cardiac sympathetic denervation causes electrophysiological heterogeneity and has been found to be a predictor of potentially lethal VT.

CASE REPORT: We present the case of 69-year-old patient admitted with recurrent ventricular tachycardia and a history of anterior myocardial infarction. In line with Tc-99m-MIBI-SPECT perfusion imaging, electroanatomical mapping revealed extensive LV anterior scarring as detected by low-voltage areas. Surprisingly, I-123-MIBG-SPECT showed an extensive deficit of sympathetic innervation inferior (mismatch) and anterolateral (match).

CONCLUSIONS: Combination of electroanatomical mapping with tomographic imaging of innervation and perfusion might improve our understanding of the neural trigger of VT after myocardial infarction or substrate-based catheter ablation.

Keywords: Heart - innervation, Heart Ventricles - diagnostic imaging, myocardial perfusion imaging, Sympathetic Nervous System - physiopathology, Tachycardia, Ventricular - physiopathology, Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon