The role of the sympathetic nervous system in the initiation and continuation of ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VTA) is well established. However, whether CSD reduces implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) shocks and recurrent VTA is still uncertain.

A comprehensive literature search was performed at Medline and Embase until March 2023. The primary outcome was the rate of ICD shocks and VTA per patient-year in our pooled analysis of all included articles. Analyses were conducted using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software.

Initial search yielded 1324 scientific studies with a total of 15 studies fitting our inclusion criteria. ICD shocks at 1 year post-CSD revealed an event rate of 69.8% (95% CI, 56.4-80.4% with 50% heterogeneity) (I2 statistic). ICD shocks at 6 months had an event rate of 59.1% (95% CI, 46.9-70.4%; 47 I2). Analysis of our pooled studies showed that 64.3% of individuals achieved freedom from VTA at 1 year post-CSD (95% CI, 42.3-81.5%; 26% I2), while 62.3% were free from recurrent VTA 6 months post-CSD (95% CI, 51.2-72.2%; 40% I2). Time to mortality directly caused by recurrent VTA post-CSD was subdivided into short-term (0-30 days), intermediate-term (31-364 days), and long-term (≥ 365). Mortality for the short-term tertile was 8.9% (95% CI, 5.0-15.4%; 0% I2), medium-term was 5.3% (95% CI, 2.4-11.3%; 0% I2), and long-term 5.2% (95% CI, 2.4-10.9%; 0% I2).

CSD seems to be promising as an acceptable treatment strategy for recurrent VTA refractory to traditional pharmacological or ablation therapy.

Ventricular arrhythmia is a common type of arrhythmia observed in clinical practice. It is primarily characterized by premature ventricular contractions, ventricular tachycardia, and ventricular fibrillation. Abnormal formation or transmission of cardiac electrical impulses in patients affects cardiac ejection function. It may present with symptoms such as palpitations, dyspnea, chest discomfort, and reduced exercise tolerance. In severe cases, ventricular arrhythmia can even lead to death. Therefore, prompt treatment is very much essential upon diagnosis. The symptoms did not improve after previous conventional drugs and electrical defibrillation treatment, but the ventricular arrhythmia was prevented after the addition of nicorandil.

A 75-year-old female patient was admitted to the hospital because of intermittent chest tightness, shortness of breath for 10 days, and fainting once for 7 days. Combined with laboratory tests and auxiliary examination, the patient was tentatively diagnosed with coronary heart disease or arrhythmia-atrial fibrillation. After admission, the patient had intermittent ventricular arrhythmia, which was uncontrolled with lidocaine, defibrillation, and amiodarone. However, when she was treated with nicorandil, the ventricular arrhythmia stopped. Nicorandil mitigates the action potential duration by facilitating the opening of potassium ion channels, thereby regulating the likelihood of premature and delayed depolarization in two distinct phases and subsequently averting the onset of malignant ventricular arrhythmia. Nicorandil may inhibit ventricular arrhythmia by dilating coronary arteries, improving coronary microcirculation and reducing myocardial fibrosis.

Nicorandil is a drug with dual effects. It could be used as a new therapeutic option for inhibiting ventricular arrhythmias.

Ultrasonography-guided left cardiac sympathetic denervation (LCSD) or bilateral cardiac sympathetic denervation (BCSD) may be a useful intervention in the electrical storm (ES) that persists despite pharmacological therapy. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of ultrasonography-guided LCSD or BCSD in the acute control of ES. We conducted a retrospective case series of patients who underwent ultrasonography-guided CSD for control of ES at a tertiary care hospital.

Data of all patients who underwent unilateral or bilateral CSD were collected from January 2017 to December 2019. Eleven patients with ES refractory to standard antiarrhythmic therapy underwent ultrasonography-guided pharmacological CSD (eight underwent LCSD and three underwent BCSD). Quantitative data was expressed as mean and median with interquartile range (IQR). Non-quantitative data was expressed in proportions.

Eleven patients underwent ultrasonography-guided pharmacological CSD (eight underwent LCSD and three underwent BCSD). Six of the eleven patients were female (54.5%). Ischemia was the underlying substrate in nine patients (81.8%). Five patients (46%) had complete resolution of ventricular tachycardia (VT) after CSD and one had 90% reduction in episodes of VT. The median follow-up duration was 8 months inter-quartile range IQR (7-18). One patient succumbed to heart failure and one patient was lost to follow up. The other patients had no further events and were well at last follow up.

Ultrasonography-guided pharmacological CSD is effective in the acute control of ES. It is easily performed with equipment that is readily available and relatively safe in terms of immediate complications and is an ideal second-line intervention when ES persists despite drug therapy.

Cardiac sympathetic denervation (CSD) is a useful therapeutic option for patients with ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) refractory to anti-arrhythmic agents and/or catheter ablation. However, the experience is mostly limited to non-structural heart disease in paediatric patients. The advent of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) with its reduced morbidity has encouraged the use of VATS CSD in patients with structural heart disease. In this series, we report the surgical and cardiac outcomes of VATS-guided CSD in four patients who presented with electrical storm in the setting of different structural cardiomyopathies. Four patients underwent VATS-guided CSD at our centre during the period 2019-2021 after failure of conventional medical and/or ablative treatment for the management of refractory VAs. All four patients presented with electrical storm with different cardiomyopathies including ischaemic (post-acute myocardial infarction) and non-ischaemic aetiologies (sarcoidosis, non-specific right ventricular cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy). A combined total of 349 implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) shocks were registered in the 4 weeks preceding the procedure with mean shocks of 87 per patient. All four patients successfully underwent CSD through the VATS approach with no operative mortality or any major surgical morbidity. All patients had resolution of electrical storms with 75% of patients remaining free of ICD shocks at a mean follow-up of 14.87 months. One patient who remained free of ICD shocks and recurrent VAs died at 23 months after the procedure due to progressive heart failure and complications. VATS CSD is a safe and effective complementary therapeutic modality in patients with life-threatening refractory VAs and electrical storms irrespective of the underlying substrate.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12055-022-01361-y.

Ventricular arrhythmias are potentially life-threatening disorders that are commonly treated with medications, catheter ablation and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Adult patients who continue to be symptomatic, with frequent ventricular arrhythmia cardiac events or defibrillation from ICD despite medical treatment, are a challenging subgroup to manage. Surgical cardiac sympathetic denervation has emerged as a possible treatment option for people refractory to less invasive medical options. Recent treatment guidelines have recommendedcardiac sympathectomy for ventricular tachycardia (VT) or VT/fibrillation storm refractory to antiarrhythmic medications, long QT syndrome, and catecholaminergic polymorphic VT, with much of the data pertaining to pediatric literature. However, for the adult population, the disease indications, complications, and risks of cardiac sympathectomy are less understood, as are the most effective surgical cardiac denervation techniques for this patient demographic. This systematic review navigates available literature evaluating surgical denervation disease state indications, techniques, and sympathectomy risks for medically refractory ventricular arrhythmia in the adult patient population.

The efficacy of percutaneous stellate ganglion block (SGB) for managing electrical storm (ES) is not well understood.

To characterize the efficacy of SGB as a treatment for ES.

We conducted literature searches using PubMed/Medline and Google Scholar, for mixed combinations of terms including "stellate ganglion block", *ganglion block (ade)", "sympathetic block (ade)" and "arrhythmia", "ventricular arrhythmia (VA)" or "tachycardia" (VT), "ventricular fibrillation" (VF), "electrical storm". Inclusion criteria were presentation with guideline-defined ES and treatment with SGB. Exclusion criteria: presentation with any supraventricular arrhythmia, VA without ES, or surgical sympathectomy. Studies lacking basic demographic data, arrhythmia description, and outcomes were excluded.

Of 3,374 publications reviewed, 38 patients from 23 studies met study criteria (52 ± 19.1 years, 11 F, 17 with ischemic cardiomyopathy). Anti-arrhythmics were used in all patients. Mean Left ventricular ejection fraction was 31 ± 10%. ES was triggered by acute myocardial infarction in 15 patients and QT prolongation in 7 patients. The most common local anesthetic used for SGB was bupivacaine (0.25-0.5%). SGB resulted in a significant decrease in VA burden (12.4±8.8 vs. 1.04±2.12 episodes/day, p< 0.001) and number of external and ICD shocks (10.0±9.1 vs. 0.05±0.22 shocks/day, p< 0.01). Following SGB, 80.6% of patients survived to discharge.

SGB is an effective acute treatment for ES. However, larger prospective randomized studies are needed to better understand the role of SGB in ES and other VAs.