State-of-the-Art Multimodality Imaging in Sudden Cardiac Arrest with Focus on Idiopathic Ventricular Fibrillation: A Review

Lisa M Verheul, Sanne A Groeneveld, Feddo P Kirkels, Paul G A Volders, Arco J Teske, Maarten J Cramer, Marco Guglielmo, Rutger J Hassink*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review article peer-review

Abstract

Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation is a rare cause of sudden cardiac arrest and a diagnosis by exclusion. Unraveling the mechanism of ventricular fibrillation is important for targeted management, and potentially for initiating family screening. Sudden cardiac arrest survivors undergo extensive clinical testing, with a growing role for multimodality imaging, before diagnosing "idiopathic" ventricular fibrillation. Multimodality imaging, considered as using multiple imaging modalities as diagnostics, is important for revealing structural myocardial abnormalities in patients with cardiac arrest. This review focuses on combining imaging modalities (echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance and computed tomography) and the electrocardiographic characterization of sudden cardiac arrest survivors and discusses the surplus value of multimodality imaging in the diagnostic routing of these patients. We focus on novel insights obtained through electrostructural and/or electromechanical imaging in apparently idiopathic ventricular fibrillation patients, with special attention to non-invasive electrocardiographic imaging.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4680
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Clinical Medicine
Volume11
Issue number16
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Aug 2022

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