Stereotactic management of arrhythmia – radiosurgery in treatment of ventricular tachycardia (SMART-VT) – clinical trial protocol and study rationale

Patients with vetricular tachycardia are usually treated with antiarrhythmic drugs and ablation if the arrhythmia substrate is available for invasive treatment. Despite high efficiency of this treatment there is a significant group of patients who do not benefit from available treatment methods, either because they cannot be applied or do not allow for durable control of the disease. For that reason a novel treatment method, STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR) has been proposed and its safety and efficiency is extensively studied throughout the world. The method is based on irradiation of the arrhythmia substrate identified with electrophysiological examination with high-precision image-guided radiosurgical methods usually used for ablation of malignant tumors. Here we present the protocol of the first Polish study on STAR in patients with intractable ventricular tachycardia (STARVT, NCT04642963), designed to test the safety of the method. Secondary endpoints include measures of the treatment efficiency.