The V-Tachogram:Decreasing Ventricular Arrythmias When Injecting Contrast in the Left Ventricle

Trillium Health Centre

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Ventricular Arrythmias

Treatments: Procedure: lv injection of contrast

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00288756

01

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine if increasing the linear rise rate of injection of x-ray contrast in the heart during left ventriculograms(part of a cardiac Catheterization procedure) will decrease the incidence of arrythmias and improve image quality?

Full description

The LV angiogram is performed frequently as part of the cardiac catheterization procedure. It is done by injecting a bolus of x-ray contrast into the ventricle through a pigtail catheter over a short period of time and observing the heart as it is pumped out. This provides information on regional wall motion abnormalities, ejection fraction, and mitral regurgitation. A common occurrence when performing a LV angio is frequent PVC's or V-tach during the injection, it has been suggested that ectopic's occurs about 54% of the time and that interpretability was limited 30% of the time(3) This is rarely serious and subsides at the end of the injection but the irregularity of the contractions does affect the diagnostic quality of the exam.

In an attempt to decrease the incidence of ventricular ectopic's during the LV angiogram Contrast injections with a greater linear rise increasing the injection duration to at least ½ the flow rate, greater than previous settings should decrease the tension and the contrast jets coming out of the catheter, decreasing the fling of the catheter at the initiation of the injection. Whether this affects the quality of the angiogram with a pig tail vs. a straight catheter will also need to be considered?

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Only ventriculograms that the operator deems necessary for the booked procedure will be considered. Only operators agreeing to the for mentioned settings will participate in the study. Patients will be randomized consecutively and should conclude in 3 to 4 weeks.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with aortic valve disease, a-fib, and frequent benign ectopic beats and patients unable to follow instructions to stop breathing will be excluded.