Lack of relation between ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death in patients with chronic heart failure.

Although both asymptomatic ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death are common in patients with chronic heart failure, there is little evidence that patients who have frequent or complex ventricular arrhythmias are at increased risk of sudden death. Two hypotheses may explain the lack of an arrhythmia-sudden death relation in this disorder. First, complex ventricular arrhythmias may be a nonspecific manifestation of a dying left ventricle rather than an indication of a specific arrhythmogenic substrate. In fact, during long-term follow-up, patients with mild heart failure who have nonsustained ventricular tachycardia are more likely to develop clinical progression of the disease rather than sudden death. Second, sudden death may be related to events other than a malignant ventricular arrhythmia. The most common myocardial ischemia, whereas the terminal event in patients with an idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy is commonly a severe bradyarrhythmia or electromechanical dissociation. Neither outcome can be predicted by a prior history of ventricular arrhythmias on ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring. If asymptomatic ventricular arrhythmias do not lead to sudden death, then there would appear to be little reason to expect that antiarrhythmic drugs could prevent cardiac arrest in patients with chronic heart failure. This may explain why drugs that suppress ambulatory arrhythmias do not prevent sudden death in these patients, whereas interventions may reduce the risk of unexpected circulatory collapse in this disorder without suppressing ventricular ectopic activity. To make matters more complicated, the desirable actions of antiarrhythmic drugs are attenuated and their negative inotropic and proarrhythmic actions are enhanced in patients with severe cardiac dysfunction.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)