The Change of Ventricular Tachycardia by Cryoinjury on the Swine Right Ventricular Epicardium

This study was performed to assess the influence of the cryoinjury on the dynamics of wavefronts and to determine whether they can convert ventricular fibrillation(VF) to ventricular tachycardia(VT) in fibrillating right ventricular(RV) of swines using an optical mapping system. A cryoinjury with a diameter of 12 mm was created on the epicardium of perfused RV of swines(n=6) and optical mapping were taken from baseline until 10 min after the cryoinjury. Out of 35 cryoinjuries, the images were possible to be interpreted in 32. The optical action potential could not be observed in either the cryoinjury or peri-injury sites at 1 and 3 min, was observed in only the cryoinjury site at 5 min, and recovered in both sites at 10 min. The cycle length of the tachycardia was 135.9±23.6 msec at baseline, 176.2±79.3 msec at 1 min, 187.6±97.9 msec at 3 min, 185.5±19.2 msec at 5 min, and 152.1±64.1 msec at 10 min. The cycle lengths at 1, 3, and 5 min after the cryoinjury were significantly more prolonged than that atbaseline (p=0.001, p=0.006, p=0.016). After the cryoinjury, the VF changed to VT in 9(28.0%), and terminated in 2(6.3%). These changes were observed mainly within 5 min after cryoinjury. The cryoinjury had anti-fibrillatory effects on the tissue with VF. This phenomenon was related to a decreasing mass and stabilizing wavefrontsope