Is Ablation Effective in Brugada Syndrome?

Brugada syndrome is a rare condition that causes sudden cardiac death and can be devastating due to frequent, painful implantable cardioverter–defibrillator (ICD) shocks. Options for these patients used to be limited to quinidine, which has many adverse side effects. More recently, epicardial ablation at the right ventricular outflow track (RVOT) has shown promise.

In this prospective registry study, researchers examined long-term outcomes after epicardial ablation in 159 patients with symptomatic Brugada syndrome and spontaneous ventricular fibrillation. All participants had Brugada electrograms (low-voltage and fractionated) substrate on the epicardium of the RVOT. An additional 30% also had arrhythmic substrate in the inferior right ventr…