Demonstration of the presence of slow conduction during sustained ventricular tachycardia in man: use of transient entrainment of the tachycardia.

To test the hypothesis that an area of slow conduction is present during reentrant ventricular tachycardia in man, and that the earliest activation site during ventricular tachycardia is within or orthodromically just distal to the area of slow conduction in the reentry loop, we studied 12 episodes of ventricular tachycardia (mean rate 185 +/- 32 beats/min) that were induced in nine patients with ischemic heart disease. Rapid ventricular pacing was performed at selected sites during ventricular tachycardia while recording electrograms from an early activation site relative to the onset of the QRS complex (site A) and from a site close to the pacing site (site B). Rapid pacing from the right ventricular apex during ventricular tachycardia with a right bundle branch block pattern and from selected left ventricular sites during ventricular tachycardia with a left bundle branch block pattern (mean pacing rate 202 +/- 38 beats/min) resulted in constant ventricular fusion beats on the electrocardiogram except f...