Ablation of ventricular arrhythmias in cardiogenetic diseases.

Sudden cardiac death is a leading cause of mortality, claiming millions of lives every year. Recent advances in cardiac arrhythmia mapping have demonstrated that the ventricular epicardial region has a critical arrhythmogenic role in some inherited cardiogenetic diseases. Historically, electroanatomic abnormalities have been identified in the ventricular epicardium of patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. More recently, epicardial pathological substrates have been identified also in disease (Brugada syndrome, early repolarization syndrome) and currently in long QT syndrome. In light of these findings, the epicardial area has emerged as an important determinant in sudden cardiac death-related cardiomyopathies.