Researchers have demonstrated that left cardiac sympathetic denervation relieves symptoms in patients with the genetic disorder catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT).

They say the approach could avoid patients unresponsive to beta blockade having to be fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), which can trigger new arrhythmias.

In their report in the New England Journal of Medicine, Arthur Wilde (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and team explain that catecholaminergic polymorphic VT is caused by mutations in genes involved in calcium homeostasis in cardiac cells.