Ventricular Tachycardia

Ventricular tachycardia, often shortened to V-tach or VT, is a type of arrhythmia, or abnormal heart rhythm. It begins in the ventricles, the heart's two lower pumping chambers. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute describes it as a fast, regular beating of the ventricles that may last only a few seconds or much longer. According to the NHLBI, a few beats of ventricular tachycardia often do not cause problems, but episodes lasting more than a few seconds can lead to more serious arrhythmias, including ventricular fibrillation, which can cause sudden cardiac arrest.

Symptoms can include a racing heartbeat, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pain, and fainting. Causes include prior heart attacks and scar tissue, heart failure, inherited conditions, electrolyte problems, and some medications. Certain drugs can prolong the heart's electrical recovery time (shown as a long QT interval on an ECG), which raises the risk of dangerous ventricular rhythms.

The term appears in litigation in two ways. First, drug injury lawsuits sometimes allege that a medication's label did not adequately warn about arrhythmia risk. Second, cases over implanted cardiac devices, such as defibrillators and their leads, involve whether the device correctly detected and treated ventricular tachycardia. In each case, a claim depends on medical records showing the rhythm problem and evidence tying it to the product.

For how injury claims over drugs and devices are organized, see what is MDL (multidistrict litigation) and class action vs. mass tort. This page is general information, not medical advice.