Ventricular fibrillation occurs when multiple sites in the ventricles fire impulses very rapidly in an uncoordinated fashion and quivering ventricles cease to pump blood effectively leading to rapid death.
VF is the course for death in most patients experiencing out of hospital cardiac arrest.
Most commonly associated with structural heart disease, such as coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction or ischemia.
The next most common group of causative structural heart diseases are the dilated cardiomyopathies without significant coronary artery disease.
May be associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Patient presenting with ventricular fibrillation with pulseless ventricular tachycardia with out of hospital cardiac arrest have a higher survival then patience with other rhythms.
Almost half of patients with ventricular fibrillation remain refractory to defibrillation, despite multiple attempts.
Among patients with a refractory ventricular fibrillation, survival to hospital discharge occurs more frequently among those who receive double sequential external defibrillation or vector change defibrillation than those who receive standard defibrillation.