Any experiences of premature ventricular depolorisation complexes?

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cm2581

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My horse has been diagnosed with this after full investigations following an episode of collapse. She is currently on 4 weeks of oral steroids followed by another months rest then a re-evaluation by resting and exercising ecg. The vet is not to hopeful of any great improvement which will mean permanent retirement on safety grounds. Does anyone have any experience of this and the outcomes?
 
Ventricular premature complexes (VPCs) are an electrical abnormality of the heart. Normally a heart beat is created in a very specific order - the Sino-Atrial Node (SAN) fires first, and the electrical activity spreads through the atria, then through the Atrio-Ventricular node, down a pathway to the base of the ventricles, then through the ventricles. This means that the atria contract first, followed shortly after by the ventricles.
When VPCs occur, the first site of electrical activity is no longer the SAN, but a small piece of myocardial tissue within the ventricle. This means the ventricles will contract before the atria, with much less efficient pumping of blood. Individual VPCs do not cause many problems, but the worry is that runs of them occur together leading to much reduced cardiac output and eventually collapse. It also makes other dangerous heart rhythms, such as ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation more likely to occur.
Usually it is caused by a small piece of abnormal myocardial tissue in the ventricles, which can occur for a variety of reasons. I would imagine your horse is receiving steroids in the hope that it is an inflammatory lesion. In humans these abnormal myocardial areas are sometimes treated by mapping the electrical activity to a specific region, then zapping the area to kill it. Unfortunately intra-cardiac catheterisation is not available in horses.
Unfortunately I would agree with your vet - a cure is unlikely, and riding is unsafe without a cure.
 
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply alsiola. This is what I think will happen but I'm always clinging to a little hope! I'd never heard of it and just wondered if anyone had any experience of it. She seems so well at the moment - better than she has done for years!! Reasessment at the end of September/beg October. It'll be funny seeing her unclipped! She's been fully clipped for at least the last 10 years every winter!
 
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