Clinical, angiographic, and electrophysiologic findings in patients with aborted sudden death as compared with patients with sustained ventricular tachycardia after myocardial infarction.

After the acute phase of myocardial infarction, patients who develop sustained ventricular arrhythmias present with either sudden death or ventricular tachycardia (VT). Although current evidence suggests that VT frequently precedes ventricular fibrillation (VF) in patients presenting with sudden death, the factors resulting in rapid deterioration of VT to VF have not been delineated in humans. To determine whether left ventricular function, coronary anatomy, or electrophysiologic characteristics could differentiate patients with sudden death from those with VT without sudden death, we compared results of cardiac angiography and programmed electrical stimulation in 42 patients referred for evaluation of sustained VT or surviving "aborted" sudden death for more than 9 days after myocardial infarction. By univariate analysis there were no differences between patients with sudden death and those with VT in age, time from myocardial infarction to VT or sudden death, ejection fraction (0.31 +/- 0.12 vs 0.29 +/-...