Ablation of ventricular tachycardia in the very elderly patient with cardiomyopathy: how old is too old?

BACKGROUND: Because of the disputable effectiveness of the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in very elderly patients, it is reasonable to consider catheter ablation of scar-related ventricular tachycardia (VT) at an earlier stage of the therapeutic cascade, especially in those who have refused ICD implantation.
METHODS: Analysis of 53 VT ablations performed in our tertiary centre in patients with ischemic or nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy who were ≥ 60 years of age. We assessed the safety and acute effectiveness of the procedure in 14 very elderly patients (age ≥ 80 years), follow-up all-cause mortality and rates of ICD therapies during follow-up. Furthermore, we established a comparison between very elderly patients and: (1) 34 patients aged 60-79 years having the same procedure; and (2) 11 octogenarian patients with ischemic or nonischemic cardiomyopathy, documented ventricular fibrillation or sustained VT, subsequent secondary prevention ICD implantation and at least 1 ICD therapy after implantation.
RESULTS: Complete acute success was achieved in 80% of procedures in very elderly patients vs 91.7% in younger individuals. Three complications occurred in the former, including 1 periprocedural death not directly related to the procedure itself, and 2 were seen in the latter. A 6-month 27.3% occurrence of any ICD therapy was seen in the very elderly group (with only 1 patient who required an ICD shock), and the 6-month incidence of ICD therapies in the younger group was 32%. All 11 control octogenarian ICD patients had further ICD therapies after their first ICD intervention.
CONCLUSIONS: Ablation of VT in very elderly patients seems relatively safe and as effective as in younger patients.