Management of patients with  an electrical storm or clustered ventricular arrhythmias:
a clinical consensus statement of the European Heart Rhythm Association of the ESC-endorsed by the Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society

Patients with various cardiac conditions associated with ventricular arrhythmias may present with a so-called ‘electrical storm’. This is defined as a state of electrical instability with potential life-threatening arrhythmias over a short period of time (more specifically: 3 or more uninterrupted episodes of ventricular arrhythmias, separated by at least 5 minutes, requiring either medication or electrical shock to stop them. For obvious reasons such an electrical storm falls into the category of cardiac emergency where immediate action is required. The required interventions strongly depend on the underlying condition, and some of these conditions, in particular the inherited cardiac diseases, are rare to very rare. That´s why accurate disease-specific recommendations are absolutely needed to guide the treating physicians. Possible options range from various drugs (including so-called sedation which calms you down and makes you fall asleep) to emergency catheter ablation.

This document was initiated by the European Heart Rhythm Association and brings together experts from around the world to formulate these recommendations. The North American Heart Rhythm Society, the Latin American Heart Rhythm Society and the Asian Pacific Heart Rhythm Society endorsed this paper, and representatives of these societies have given their  input as well.

Hence, the document can be regarded as a world-wide consensus document on the treatment of incessant ventricular arrhythmia, called electrical storm.

 

Translated by Arthur Wilde and Ruth Biller

Lenarczyk R, Zeppenfeld K, Tfelt-Hansen J, Heinzel FR, Deneke T, Ene E, Meyer C, Wilde A, Arbelo E, Jędrzejczyk-Patej E, Sabbag A, Stühlinger M, diBiase L, Vaseghi M, Ziv O, Bautista-Vargas WF, Kumar S, Namboodiri N, Henz BD,Montero-Cabezas J, Dagres N, Peichl P, Frontera A, Tzeis S, Merino JL, Soejima K, de Chillou C, Tung R, Eckardt L, Maury P, Hlivak P, Tereshchenko LG, Kojodjojo P, Atié J. Management of patients with  an electrical storm or clustered ventricular arrhythmias: a clinical consensus statement of the European Heart Rhythm Association of the ESC-endorsed by the Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society, Heart Rhythm Society, and Latin-American Heart Rhythm Society. Europace.2024Mar30;26(4):euae049.doi:10.1093/europace/euae049.PMID:38584423;PMCID:PMC10999775