Ventricular Tachycardia + Structural Heart Disease?

1) Does structural heart disease eg. valvular diseases cause ventricular tachycardia?

2) Is it true that someone with Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC) is in a high risk to develop VTach?

3) How does nonsustained ventricular tachycardia being treated in the patient with prior structural heart disease?

4) I was informed that beta-blockers are safe, and they are the first choice unless contraindicated. But as we know, beta-blockers block the function of epinephrine and couldn't be used by patients with severe allergies. So, what kind of drug/s could be use as substitution?

These are questions you should ask your doctor or cardiologist.

1) Yes, you are at higher risk for developing VT if you have structural heart disease. I do not believe it specifically causes it, but it increases your risk.

2) That depends on the severity of your disease. In people with normal hearts, PVC's generally are not problematic but in patients with structural heart disease, that can be one of many different causes of VT.

3) Treatment usually involves placement of an AICD (automated implantable cardioverter-defibrillator), along with drugs that decrease the chances the AICD will "fire"...so drugs that slow down your heart rate (e.g. beta blockers) and antiarrhythmic drugs (e.g. procainamide, amiodarone).

4) I think you're probably looking short-sightedly at this problem. Epinephrine would only be used if you had a code blue. Depending on what kind of code blue the person has, epinephrine may not even be used. I am no expert on ACLS but I think you understand what I mean. Beta-blockers have proven life-altering benefits, especially in patients with a cardiac history (myocardial infarction, for example). Antiarrhythmics (amiodarone, lidocaine, procainamide), adenosine, atropine and other agents can also be used to resuscitate patients undergoing a code blue, depending on the cause. As for alternatives, I think you pretty much need to use the beta blockers and antiarrhythmics. I believe my answers are relatively accurate, but however, again, I'd say you should be asking your cardiologist and not Y! Answers.

Good luck.