CASE REPORTS Recurrent Ventricular Tachycardia

Ventricular tachycardia is a dangerous form of arrhythmia, and is usually a manifestation of serious heart disease, either acute ischaemia, severe heart failure, myocarditis, or sometimes drug intoxica-tion, especially digitalis. Treatment is only rarely based on aetiology. The most effective therapy has been found to be electrical conversion (Lown et al., 1963; Castellanos, Lemberg, and Fonseca, 1965; Waris, Kreus, and Salokannel, 1967). How-ever, defibrillation does not prevent relapses, and therefore it is often compulsory to repeat cardio-versions and to use antiarrhythmic agents to retain sinus rhythm. The purpose of the present paper is to report a case of recurrent ventricular tachy-cardia, and to show that the key problem is how to prevent new attacks after successful electrical conversion. Case Report A shopkeeper, aged 56, was first examined in 1964 i