Bilateral Cardiac Sympathetic Denervation for Treatment-Resistant Ventricular Arrhythmias in Heart Failure Patients with a Reduced Ejection Fraction

The sympathetic nervous system plays an important role in life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias (VAs). Bilateral cardiac sympathetic denervation (BCSD) is performed for refractory VAs. We sought to assess our institutional experience with BCSD in managing treatment-resistant monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (MMVT) in heart failure patients with a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).Four patients with HFrEF (EF 30.0 ± 8.2%, New York Heart Association [NYHA] class IV 1) underwent BCSD for MMVT (VT storm 3, repetitive VT requiring implantable cardioverter defibrillator [ICD] therapy 1) refractory to antiarrhythmic drugs, catheter ablation and ICD therapy. BCSD was effective for suppressing VT in 3 patients for whom deep sedation was effective for suppressing VT. One patient remained alive after 14 months of follow-up without episodes of VT. One patient died of acute myocardial infarction before discharge and 1 patient died from unknown cause at 3 days post-discharge. In contrast, BCSD was completely ineffective for suppressing VT in a patient with NYHA class IV for whom deep sedation and stellate ganglion block were ineffective. This patient died on the 10th post-CSD day, despite left ventricular assist device implantation. In all cases, BCSD was successfully performed without procedure-related complications.Despite the limited number of cases, our results showed that BCSD in patients with HFrEF suppressed refractory MMVT in acute-phase except for a patient with NYHA class IV; however, the prognoses were not good. BCSD may be a treatment option at an earlier stage of NYHA and a bridge to orthotopic heart transplantation, even if BCSD is effective for suppressing VAs.