Circadian variability patterns predict and guide premature ventricular contraction ablation procedural inducibility and outcomes

Abstract

Background Infrequent intraprocedural premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) may impede radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA) outcome, and pharmacologic induction is unpredictable. Objective The purpose of this study was to determine whether PVC circadian variation could help predict drug response. Methods Consecutive patients referred for RFA with detailed Holter monitoring and frequent monomorphic PVCs were included. Patients were divided into 3 groups based on hourly PVC count relationship to corresponding mean heart rate (HR) during each of the 24 hours on Holter: fast-HR-dependent PVC (F-HR-PVC) type for a positive correlation (Pearson, P <.05), slow-HR-dependent PVC (S-HR-PVC) type for a negative correlation, and independent-HR-PVC (I-HR-PVC) when no correlation was found. Results Fifty-one of the 101 patients (50.5%) had F-HR-PVC, 39.6% I-HR-PVC, and 9.9% S-HR-PVC; 30.7% had infrequent intraprocedural PVC requiring drug infusion. The best predictor of infrequent PVC was number of hours with PVC count <120/h on Holter (area under the curve 0.80, sensitivity 83.9%, specificity 74.3%, for ≥2 h). Only F-HR-PVC patients responded to isoproterenol. Isoproterenol washout or phenylephrine infusion was successful for the 3 S-HR-PVC patients, and no drug could increase PVC frequency in the 12 I-HR-PVC patients. Long-term RFA success rate in patients with frequent PVCs at baseline (82.9%) was similar to those with infrequent PVC who responded to a drug (77.8%; P = .732) but significantly higher than for those who did not respond to any drug (15.4%; P <.0001). Conclusion A simple analysis of Holter PVC circadian variability provides incremental value to guide pharmacologic induction of PVCs during RFA and predict outcome. Patients with infrequent I-HR-PVC had the least successful outcomes from RF ablation.