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European Heart Journal Advance Access originally published online on November 22, 2006
European Heart Journal 2006 27(24):2921-2922; doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehl396
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© The European Society of Cardiology 2006. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Electrical storm: still a cryptogenic phenomenon?

Wilhelm Haverkamp

Department of Cardiology, Charité –, Campus Virchow Clinic, Augstenburger Platz 1, 13353 Berlin, Germany

Corresponding author. Tel: +49 3303 508166; fax: +49 30 450 553 961. E-mail address: wilhelm.haverkamp@charite.de

This editorial refers to ‘Electrical storm in patients with an implantable defibrillator: incidence, features, and preventive therapy: insights from a randomized trial’{dagger} by S.H. Hohnloser et al., on page 3027

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

The implantable cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD) has become the dominant therapeutic modality for the treatment of life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias. However, the ICD does not prevent the occurrence of ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF). Repeated tachyarrhythmias occurring in a short period of time may therefore result in the delivery of multiple shocks. This phenomenon has been termed ‘electrical storm’ (ES). ES constitutes a medical emergency, which usually results in hospitalization. Occasionally, individual patients may experience more than 50 consecutive shocks. Most patients become anxious and agitated, and psychosocial consequences often outlast the acute event.1 ES may also cause premature ICD battery depletion necessitating generator replacement.

Fortunately, patients experiencing extremely frequent ICD discharges are rare. In order to make it possible to study the mechanisms, predictors, and the prognostic significance of ES, its definition has been broadened. . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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Related articles in EHJ:

Electrical storm in patients with an implantable defibrillator: incidence, features, and preventive therapy: insights from a randomized trial
Stefan H. Hohnloser, Hussein R. Al-Khalidi, Craig M. Pratt, Jose M. Brum, Daljit S. Tatla, Patrick Tchou, Paul Dorian, and on behalf of the SHock Inhibition Evaluation with AzimiLiDe (SHIELD) Investigators
EHJ 2006 27: 3027-3032. [Abstract] [Full Text]