Re:But what's the long-term prognosis? (Score 4, Informative)

Excited to see the dialogue about this! Ventricular tachycardia is a very different beast than atrial fibrillation. Medication and catheter ablation for afib is quite effective in most patients. Afib is not life threatening for most. In contrast, VT is very life threatening, and most patients would die from their VT if they didn't have an implanted defibrillator. Likewise, medications and catheter ablation for VT is less effective. Furthermore, once someone becomes refractory to standard VT therapies, their chances of dying from the VT become substantial. Likewise, options for these sick patients are quite limited - heroic attempts at repeat ablation, heart transplant, or even hospice. We employed a unique combination of non-invasive mapping of the VT using a "vest" of electrodes which can 3-dimensional map the VT (ECGI) and combined it with a known non-invasive ablative therapy (SBRT) which I typically use to treat tumors. SBRT is precise, focused, and has been used in thousands of patients. SBRT to the diseased part of the heart causing the VT is what makes this special. You are appropriately skeptical about the long term benefit of such a treatment. Standard therapies fail more than 50% of the time. We aren't proposing that this would necessarily be superior to standard therapies, but certainly provides an alternative to those with no alternatives. With time, it might even become a viable option for more patients. We are carefully studying this now in a prospective trial after we saw these initially encouraging results. We must be diligent about monitoring for unexpected toxicities and results. Thank you for your comments, and for keeping us honest. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2...