A critical review on telemonitoring in heart failure.

Morbidity and mortality remain high in heart failure despite considerable progress achieved with medical therapy and electrical devices. A multidisciplinary approach is actually strongly recommended. In order to provide optimal care to the ever-growing population of patients with heart failure, telemonitoring has been proposed as a modality to improve usual care.

Is there a potential benefit to increased irrigation channels during radiofrequency ablation? Results from a two-center prospective randomized study.

Introduction: Open irrigation during radiofrequency (RF) application allows a higher power delivery in the setting of temperature-controlled ablation, without causing blood clots. This study sought to evaluate the clinical value of the additional 6 supplementary channels at the proximal catheter tip compared to a standard irrigated RF catheter with 6 conventional channels present at the distal tip only.

Methods And Results: Ninety-five consecutive patients were prospectively randomized to cavotricuspid isthmus ablation using an 3.

Complicated forms of tachycardia-mediated cardiomyopathy associated with idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia.

Idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia is an infrequent form of ventricular tachycardia associated with a structurally normal heart. The prognosis is usually benign; however, sustained cases have been reported. In this report, we describe two cases of persistent idiopathic left ventricular tachycardia complicated by tachycardia-mediated cardiomyopathy.

Multidetector 16-slice CT scan evaluation of cavotricuspid isthmus anatomy before radiofrequency ablation.

Introduction: The anatomy of the cavotricuspid isthmus (CTI) is an important determinant of the ease of radiofrequency ablation. We evaluated the anatomy of the region with a multidetector 16-slice computed tomography (CT) scan and correlated this with subsequent procedural difficulty.

Methods: Twenty-nine patients (mean age 64 +/- 15 years) with typical atrial flutter or paroxysmal atrial fibrillation underwent ablation of the CTI.